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WHITE AS SNOW 


* >k fr 

By EDWARD GARRETT, 

AUTHOR OF “ OCCUPATION OF A RETIRED LIFE,” “CRUST AND CAKE, 

“y S 3 3 and 

RUTH GARRETT. 



NEW YORK: 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., 

No. 770 BROADWAY. 

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E. 0. JENKINS, 

STEREOTYPER AND PRINTER 
20 N. WILLIAM ST., N. Y. 


CONTENTS 


Introduction ....... 5 

I. 

Milly Hayden . \ . . . . . . 11 

II. 

Miss Felicia . . . . . . .48 

III. 

A Rough Diamond . . , . . . . 86 

IV. 

A Happy Woman ...... 115 

V. 

Someday . . . . . ... ICO 

VI. 

Walter Sedley . . . . .178 




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J* I 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


INTRODUCTION. 

C HRISTMAS EVE, and real Cliristmas weather. 

The snow had been softly falling aU day, slowly 
shrouding the wide valley below our windows. No 
business nor duty had called me from home, and I fear 
I had been rather idle, especially in contrast to the 
industry of my sister and the maids. What a cipher a 
man feels at times ! I had just written a few letters to 
some old friends, though I had little to say, beyond ‘‘ A 
merry Christmas to you, and as many more of them as 
you may need to put you in perfect tune for the anthem 
in our Father’s house.” I think it is one of the solemn 
happinesses of Christmas that we may be quite sure that 
anybody who had ever cared for us, gives us a thought 
then. I like to fancy that the angels in heaven know 
that it is Christmas. Perhaps they know whose last 
Christmas it is. That knowledge would not make them 
sorrowful as it would make us. 

I grew to feel a little sad sitting by the fire in our comfort- 
able parlour. I can remember nearly sixty years. Sixty 
years is a wide landscape of hfe. And I have heard it 

(S) 


6 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


said that wide landscapes are saddening. It is one thing 
to look down a lane ended by a great well-to-do farm, 
where you can hear the young people singing in the par- 
lour, and can see the labourer and the serving lass court- 
ing across the stile, and know that every hving thing 
there, from the grandmother in the seat of honour to the 
blind kittens in the straw, are all well cared for and 
comfortable. It is quite another thing to stand on a 
kUl, and surve}^ house after house and haU after haU, 
some happy enough, but others with dark stories hang- 
ing over them, and the rest that you do not know at all, 
while far away rises the smoke of some great town, where 
you know there are dark lanes and closes, aye, and gay 
flaring mansions, saddest of aU, where sin and sorrow, 
and death, physical and spiritual, seem to have it aU 
their own way. And that is hke a long life. I can re- 
call many faces that I shall never see again — that have 
utterly gone out of my group in this crowded world, and 
I do not even know whether the grave has yet closed 
over them. Our Hves touched once, flowed together a 
little while, and then parted — ^is it for ever ? I could not 
help thinking of aU the wicked pleasures going on even 
on Christmas — of what some people must feel when they 
see the holly and the mistletoe and of the homes that 
are sad for their sakes to-night. 

Euth came in and sat down, at last. I heard some 
mysterious remark about the pudding being fairly put on 
to boil, but I don’t profess to understand what that could 
mean. At any rate, she sat down in the pecuharly com- 
fortable way of people who have done their work, and 
earned their rest. And she folded her hands, and she 
said, “ Well ? ” 


INTRODUCTION. 


7 


It was a “ well ” interrogative. I somehow felt that it 
was an attack ; and to discover where my weak point 
was, I answered by another question : 

« What is it ? ” 

“I Tvant to know what you are bothering yourself 
about,” she said : “ something that does not concern you, 
of course ! ” 

“I’m tliinking the world is a dreadful place,” I re- 
plied, quite solemnly. 

“ Possibly,” she returned : “ to give your thoughts a 
practical turn, you may go on and ask yourseK whether 
it is better or worse for your being in it.” 

“ You never seem to feel the awfulness of these mat- 
ters,” I said, in a reproving spirit. “ I’m sure if we only 
try to reahze the weight of our responsibility it is quite 
overwhelming — quite paralysing ! ” 

“If we have to carry a certain bmrden to a certain 
place in a certain time,” said she, “ I think we are to be 
blamed if we waste ever so long straining ourselves to 
heave it into the scales, to find out the exact pounds and 
ounces. Our business is to move it.” 

“ But it is such a puzzling world,” I said, returning to 
my starting-point. “ Some people seem to be placed 
where it is so easy to be good, and some where it is so 
hard!” 

“ I don’t think so well of human nature as to believe 
that it finds it easy to be good anywhere,” said Euth ; 
“ in its natural state it turns its very blessings into curses 
that weigh it dowm, like Tarpeia’s shower of gold.” 

“ Then, if human nature turns its very meat into poi- 
son,” I said, “ what of those who have only poison to 
begin wfith ? ” 


8 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


‘‘If you tliink half a minute, Edward,” she answered, 

“ you would see that, according to your putting of things, 
nobody can be worse off than the utterly ruined. But I 
won’t avail myself of that logic, though it is sound 
enough. I only say, show me somebody who never had 
a chance, and then I’ll begin to think what is to become 
of him.” 

“ Tliere’s a great deal of silly sentiment in the world,” she 
went on ; “ good people are too ready to stand and let bad 
people tell them that they would have been the same if they 
had been in theuvplace ! We maybe very pitiful towards 
the fallen, but we want to help them up, not to let them 
puU us down. When anybody wants to excuse any sin 
by any circumstance, you’ll not have to look far to show 
them somebody who conquered that very circumstance. 
It is but false pharity which ignores the loving-kindness 
that is pledged to set a way of escape beside every temp- 
tation. Haven’t we both known men who have kept on 
the honorable, patient tenor of their way, through trials 
as cruel as any that ruined scamps can plead in their ex- . 
tenuation? Haven’t we known women who have pre- 
served their tempers sweet, and their lives happy and 
useful, under crosses that are supposed to be the agents 
that have made other women like nothing so much as 
vinegar, pepper, and mustard, mixed on a steel knife ! ” 

“Yes, Kuth,” I said; and then I added, musingly, 

“ You and I have certainly known some very good peo- 
ple.” 

“ No more than anybody else,” said she. 

“ I wonder how it is that we are so prone to remember 
the evil and to forget the good,” I remarked. 

“ Because we hke to remember what will keep us in 


INTRODUCTION. 


9 

countenance, and forget what will put us to shame/’ said 
she. 

“■Warning and example are both intended to edify,” I 
observed, “ and yet I think that example tends most to 
edification.” 

“You can seldom get the one without the other,” 
returned Kuth . “ The wheat and the tares whl grow 

together until the harvest.” 

“Ruth,” I said, presently, “suppose that we should 
try to recall some of the triumphs of God’s strength in 
human weakness which we two have seen in our day. 
Let us try to take these lights from under their bushel, 
and let them shine before men, so that they paay see 
these good works, and glorify our Father which is in 
heaven.” 

“ I’m afraid people would only call them very common- 
place stories, Edward,” she answered. (By this depre- 
catory remark I knew she meant to consent.) “ They 
would say they did not see anything wonderful in them. 
"White is just white, Edward, and if it is clean, folks say, 
‘ So it should be ! ’ but when it is stained they say, ‘ No 
wonder, see what a dirty world it is!’ Let us blame 
it all to the world, Edward — it is what you are always 
inclined to do. But just please to remember that the 
world is not as the devil would like it to be. It is flatter- 
ing him to fancy that he has it all his own way. He 
may go splashing about like a ragmg lion, seeking whom 
he may devour, but there is a hedged way behind Christ’s 
cross, where he cannot come, though he may frighten the 
pilgrims there with his roaring, and sometimes may be- 
foul those that he cannot tear 1 ” 

“Ah,” I said, “we must never forget that any good- 
ie 


lO 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


ness anywhere is not of anybody’s own finding, but all 
of Christ’s giving. And He will give whatever is wanted, 
if only the petitioner will go to Him with open, empty 
hands.” 

“ And the reason why we get so little,” said Ruth, “ is 
because we hold up hands half full of dust and ashes 
that we fancy to be precious.” 

The clock in the hall struck. It was twelve o’clock. 
Twelve o’clock on Christmas Eve ! The bells of St. Cross 
began a-chiming. I laid my hand softly on my sister’s. 
Twelve o’clock on Christmas Eve. Such a many Christ- 
mases behind us! And what before us? Well, I think 
we shall keep Christ’s birthday in heaven I 

“ It is time we were in bed,” said Ruth, “ or we shall 
all be late in the morning.” 

And so we rose, and while she extinguished the fire, I 
walked to the window and looked out. 

“ What sort of night is it ? ” she asked, joining me. 

I moved a httle aside, and let the scene answer for 
itself. The snow had ceased, but not before it had spread 
its soft purity over everything, as if angels had been 
dressing the earth to cradle its infant Saviour. 

Ruth spoke so softly. Those clear, stern voices are 
the very softest sometimes. I did not hear all she mur- 
mured, but I caught the last words, — 

“ Wash us, and we shall be White as Snow.” 


I. 


MILLY HAYDEN. 

I RUTH GARRETT, once kept an unmistakable 
^ stop. I not only lent books, but sold them, and 
periodicals besides, as well as paper, pens, and ink, and 
all the implements that civilization requires to record 
its ideas — or its want of them. And I’m very glad that 
I kept a shop, for it let me know something more of hu- 
man nature than I should if I had lived in a parlour, 
doing crochet, nagging at my servant girl, and paying 
genteel visits to genteel people who stand towards me in 
a position of genteel indifference. It was far more 
amusing to sit at my desk, and receive aU comers, from 
the Russian princess who stayed a month at the Manor 
House, to the sHp-shod dressmaker who adored Bulwer 
Lytton, and bought his photograph only the week before 
her landlady sold her up for arrears of rent. I was 
really rather sorry to go out of business just after photo- 
graphs came in. It was such fun to hear the criticisms 
upon them ! To be sure, it is much the same thing as 
hearing the criticisms on books. The only conclusions 
to be drawn from either are, that however ugly you may 
be, somebody will always think you handsome, and what- 
ever nonsense you may write, somebody will be always 
ready to read it. 

Not that I am innocent enough to suppose that people 

(U) 


12 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


always read the books they borrow. But I soon found 
out the shams. They were divided iuto two classes — 
the first beiug bustliug, unmethodical people, or indolent 
people, who fancy themselves busy. These always hon- 
estly mean to read — some day, when they have leisure : 
in the meantime, they don’t much mind what book they 
take out, just to keep up their subscription. The others 
are sheer hypocrites and are vastly particular, their pre- 
tended taste standing as straight and stiff as would an 
artificial flower, if you stuck it in your garden. Natural 
inclinations are never straight and stiff. The man who 
honestly prefers history is sure sometimes to turn aside 
to travels or fiction, out of sheer love for his own partic- 
ular study. But if one only apes a taste, he or she must 
be a very clever body to be able to act out its natural de- 
velopment. There was Miss Vix, who avoided what she 
called ‘‘secular reading” — I always wondered if she 
thought I told the cm’ates what books she had. Not that 
there was anything personal in her interest in the cur- 
ates, for we had about ten of them in twenty years, and 
she impartially looked after them aU. Miss Vix had 
very strong clerical leanings, an4 at one time she felt 
pretty safe to read any book written by a “ Eeverend,” 
but siuce the advent of Charles Kingsley, she found that 
standard had lost its safety. I wonder why Miss Vix 
thought God made week-days at alL I asked her once 
if she ventured to read the Book of Job, siuce some Bib- 
hcal critics think it may be what is called “ a story.” For 
my own part I always had an inclination to fiction, be- 
cause I think what are generally called facts are the 
most fictitious things in the world. How much do most 
biographers really know of their subject ? Who would 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


13 


you trust to write your biography ? And yet you’re no- 
body in particular. But if you had a giant heart, and had 
lived a life to match, how would you like aU your grand 
moral anatomy to be overhauled by any pigmy that 
wanted to earn a dishonest penny ? Now in fiction, if 
the writer can do nothing else, he can scarcely help let- 
ting out a bit of himself — even if it be only that he is a 
fool. 

Now my brother Edward always had a great hldng for 
biography. When he was quite a little boy he used to 
read the lives of John Howard and Ehzabeth Fry over 
and over again. Of course I had read them, I may say 
before he was born, and I hked them very weU, only I 
was sorry Howard did not pay more attention to his own 
son, and also that he begrudged the comforts of the lit- 
tle Blue-coat boys, who seem to me to deserve considera- 
tion as much as prisoners in dungeons, though they d<5 
say many get into the school whose parents could very 
well bring them up elsewhere, which is a shameful thing, 
but it only seems to me that those boys need the more 
pity for belonging to such sneaks. But, for my own part, 
rU always believe there is more good done in the world 
by some people whose names never get into print, except 
perhaps on their tombstones, than by any professed phil- 
anthropist that was ever bom. For one . thing, little 
charities and kindnesses always breed, and great ones 
but seldom. If I wanted to start an almshouse or an 
hospital, I would not set out by announcing some great 
swelling subscription that would frighten away the shil- 
lings and pence, or give them a decent excuse for think- 
ing they were not needed. You wiU always find that 
institutions, supported by a great number of small sub- 


14 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


Bcribers, are more flourisliing and wealthy than those 
which depend on the wealthy few. There is more in the 
giving than in the gift. And it is just the same with 
kindnesses. A man of wealth and leisure may spend his 
whole life m doing good, and he will be called fine names, 
and phrenologists will use his portrait to illustrate the 
organ of benevolence, and some penny-a-liner will find 
out aU about him, where he was born, and the way he 
went a-wooing, and what time he rose in the morning, and 
it wiU be put into red and blue books for school-prizes, 
to awake the emulation of the httle boys and girls, who 
will wish they too had wealth and leism’e, when they 
might — ^possibly — ^go and do likewise. But let us hear 
that our charwoman spent the night, between one day at 
the wash-tub and another at the scrubbing-brush, watch- 
ing by some sick neighbour of whom she knew no more 
than that she moved in last week and was a stranger, and 
her husband did not seem good to her, and then a little 
sting teUs us where our heart is — if we have one ! 

But, although I own I hke fiction, that is to say, fiction 
that treats of such people and events as may be in one’s 
next neighbour’s house ^ at the very moment, I have no 
hankering after what is sometimes sighed over, as ‘'beau- 
tiful poetical justice.” As if any man’s fancies can be 
better than God’s facts. Why, they are but bad im- 
itations of the same, only they show out harsh and coarse, 
hke a child’s clumsy transcription of his master’s copy. 
God does not put the beginning and the end close to- 
gether, as they are in story-books or in companion pic- 
tures. He takes His own time over His work, and we 
must do the same ; and, in the meanwhile, we have His 
word to keep our minds easy. And, if that isn’t enough 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


15 


for us, we' can just be uneasy, which want of faith is a sin 
that does not draw its punishment behind it, but carries 
it in a side pocket. As I know by experience. For I 
have mistrusted God very much more than I should hke 
to be mistrusted myself. 

Not that I am one of those who have seen so little of 
the world that they dare to say that goodness and bad- 
ness each ripen their own fruit so far in this life, that they 
need no other climate to bring it to perfection. If there 
were no other world, then it would not be profitable to 
be good. It is just because there is another world that 
goodness rewards itself even here. “ Profitable, both for 
this life and that which is to come.” You can’t separate 
those two clauses. We see a sinner iu the midst of the 
best pleasures he knows anything about, and we see a 
saint old, alone, and poor. We look at their faces and 
we hear their words, and we feel that the latter is happi- 
est, and we own that godliness is great gain. But then, 
that is simply because the one is snatching at delight 
with about as much enjoyment as a burglar might toss 
off a goblet of wine, as he felt an arresting hand laid on 
his shoulder ; whilst the other is as cheerful as a child 
expecting a feast, which he knows is only a httle late be- 
cause it is to be spread in the best room of his father’s 
house. Better a hut with a sky view than a subterran- 
ean palace. When we count up fives, we shall always 
find that item, “ the look forward,” will make all things 
equal. 

I cannot think how anybody cares for fiction who be- 
lieves it is better than reality, which seems to me the same 
as saving that fallen man has a higher ideal than our 
pure and holy God. For my own part, I feel certain that 


i6 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


every fine character ever invented is just the echo of some 
man or woman hving somewhere. And not so very far away 
from ourselves, may be. Only, if wo are commonplace, 
we see them commonplace too. How many people would 
notice any beauty in one of Raphael’s pictures, if it hung 
in a marine-store, priced haK a crown ? But, when it is 
put in a gallery, with walls toned to suit it, and two po- 
licemen to guard it, and its history written out in the 
catalogue with the prices that Idngs have offered for it, 
then, “How glorious! how divine! how unapproach- 
able ! how different to the pictures of these modern ar- 
tists, common men, whom we meet at dinner-parties 
and soirees I ” 

Living in the same place all my life, among ordinary 
people, inclined to be unlearned and poor, I have caught 
glimpses of humanity that make me say that all the tra- 
gedies and romances and ballads ever written are just 
articulate voices, rising here and there among a great, 
solemn, dumb multitude. 

To illustrate what I mean, I shall teU the history of 
a certain old neighbour of mine. But are you sensible 
enough to take any interest in a hero five feet high, with 
sandy hair and a squint, who got his living — rather more 
honestly than most fictitious heroes — in a small draper’s 
shop ? 

His name was James Watson. Little Jem he was 
called when I first took any notice of him, which was 
when he was twelve years old, and I made him free of my 
library. I meant it for a kindness, seeing he was studious 
and did not care much for out-door sports. But I’m 
never sure whether that will be set down to the hst of 
my good or my evil deeds. It is very hard to hit the 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


17 

right way to do good, as I’ve always felt by personal ex- 
perience^ since I thought to save the time and morals of 
the JMallowe youth by refusing to sell trumpery, weekly 
journals, and nonsensical novels, and the very next week 
they all appeared in the Berlin shop- window, with an 
announcement that a discount of two-pence to the shil- 
ling would be allowed to their purchasers ! And so I 
wonder whether it would have been better for Jem’s 
comfort if he had never got beyond the dozen or score 
of books -which stood at the top of his father’s oaken bu- 
reau, which had fallen from more aristocratic uses to be 
the receptacle of the carpenter’s rent-book and measure- 
ments. But I satisfy myself by reflecting that comfort is 
not everything, and it’s better to be a -wise man praying 
on a wooden chair, than an idiot asleep on swan’s-down. 

As I said, Jem’s father was a carpenter. His house 
stood a Httle back from the High Street — a four-roomed 
cottage, -with a long strip of garden, especially rich in 
hollyhocks, balsams, and sunflowers. There was a honey- 
suckle trained round the parlour window, and its deli- 
cate flowers come sweeping over the coarse white curtains. 
That parlour was altogether a pretty place, for Jem’s 
father had a taste in his simple way, and it never misled 
him but once. Which was when he chose his wife for 
her good looks. 

“You don’t know how I like your parlour, llr. Wat- 
son,” I said to liim one day, shouting into his ear, for a 
long habit of withdrawing his attention from his life’s 
tongue, alternately sharp and querulous, had ultimately 
produced the effect of deafness. “ I don’t think anybody 
need to want a pleasanter room.” 

“ Eh ? ye never knows, miss,” he answered. He never 


i8 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


got beyond that. His life’s mistake had not drawn a 
sharp line across his character, as it sometimes does, but 
it had smeared it all over, so that he was never sure of 
anything in himself or anybody else, and had no firm 
anchorage in hfe except his work with rule and measure 
in the shed beyond the garden. And there little Jem 
used to sit all day among the shavings, with the green 
light through the trees making his white face quite 
ghastly. His father seldom spoke to him. He had lost 
the habit of speaking before Jem was born, and could not 
get it back. But early experience had made Jem associ- 
ate speech with scolding, and so silence seemed the 
oracle of love. Jem knew his father loved him, though 
the love was not uttered in the ordinary paternal pettings 
and spoilmgs and treatings, and showed itself chiefly in 
a stubborn resentment at any hint that Jem was ‘‘grow- 
ing up.” For the silent carpenter had lost faith in life, 
and wanted to snatch a sort of enchanted pleasure in 
spite of it. I think he would have been very glad if Time 
could have crystallized round that wooden shed under 
the trees, with him at work on some endless “job,” and 
little Jem sitting on the shavings. Disappointments lift 
some minds above themselves, and set them on lull-tops, 
where they can see the sun long after the valley is dark. 

)But others they fetter, as in a prison-cell, with , just one 
little flower growing between the stones to bear witness 
to their hearts that God is still alive. Not that IVIr. Wat- 
son the carpenter knew that he was disappointed. He 
only knew there was something vTong. The doctor said 
it was indigestion, and the carpenter assented, but with 
the grim words, “ That was a rum thmg for a working- 
man to have! ” 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


19 


Jem was always a great favourite of mine, and his 
father interested me like an unguessed riddle, or a poem 
where one is not quite sure what the poet means — veiy 
hkely because he did not know himself. So, for their 
sakes, I made the best of Mrs. Watson. And she was 
not a bad ^7oman to visit, for she always made me thank 
God I did not belong to her. Grumble, grumble, grum- 
ble ! She was under the delusion that she did herself a 
mortal injustice the day she “accepted” Watson, “for 
she was not like girls who only have one chance — bless 
you, what with her good looks — she might speak of them 
herself now, mightn^t she ? for they were all gone ” (at 
which juncture one was expected to shake one’s head 
and protest). “ Well, with whatever it might be that 
they called her good looks, and her nice little bit of mo- 
ney, she might have looked higher, that she might! 
Watson wasn’t the first. No, indeed. And she refused 
him twice, but he wouldn’t take ‘ No,’ for an answer. Let 
it be understood that in those days he was a fine-looking 
young fellow, and with a coaxing tongue. If she’d known 
how sulky and plain he’d turn out, she wouldn’t have 
looked at him, not if he’d been the squire himself. But 
we can’t ail be prophets — more’s the pity ! ” — and then 
Mrs. Watson would finish with a pathetic sigh, which 
was understood to allude to an old swain, whom she had 
despised for plainness and poverty, but who had since 
gone up in prosperity until he drove out in “ as neat a 
trap as you’d wish to see.” Whether or no he kept an 
annual thanksgiving on the day when she refused him, I 
never ascertained, but I should think it to be very likely. 

No man in Mallowe worked harder than Mr. Watson. 
Yet the family grew poorer and poorer. There was 


20 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


always siclmess in the house. The wife said it pleased 
the Lord to afflict them, and the others mustn’t murmur 
under their share, since the heavier burden of personal 
suffering generally lay on her. “ If you saw how Wat- 
son looks at the doctor’s bills, you’d know in a minute 
that he’d no feeling. What’s money compared to his 
wife’s hfe ?” she would say. 

Did she think it was pleasing to God that she 
should wear thin shoes in wet weather, because she 
wanted to keep household expenses at a tolerable level 
after an extra outlay on a smart bonnet? Then she was 
a woman wfflo did not like cooking, having once had a 
complexion, which she had feared to spoil, and so the 
family dinners were just prepared in the easiest fashion. 
“ Wasn’t what was good enough for other people good 
enough for them ?” she argued ; “ she hated folks who 
despised good victuals unless there had been a whole 
morning wasted in cooking them.” I saw this meal 
once, and wondered no more at the stories of Mr. Wat- 
son’s indigestion and Jemmy’s want of appetite. And I 
was w’ilhng enough to admit that God had certainly 
afflicted Mrs. Watson, since he gave her a poor head to 
begin with, and never changed her heart. 

Jemmy seldom went among the village boys except at 
school hours. He had got into the habit of reading 
aloud to his father in the shed, of course in an inteijec- 
tional way, ceasing when the hammer was needed, and 
proceeding when the quieter work was going forward. 
Jemmy told me all about it with great glee. I scarcely 
supposed his father listened, or eared for it at all, except 
as a possible means of pleasing his boy and keeping him 
at his side. But I thought it might do Jemmy no harm. 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


21 


For good habits, or bad ones either, are very often not 
purposely planted in our hves by our legitimate garden- 
ers, but are just dropped in by accidental circumstances. 
And to accommodate oneself to the state of things 
around one, is a lesson worth learning. There’s a goodj 
deal in having patience and temper to keep quiet in the] 
right place in our hves while God’s hammer checks us/ 
I will own that I have always found that bit of disci- 
pline particularly hard. 

The carpenter died suddenly when James was just 
fourteen. He had worked all day as usual, and had read 
the newspaper at supper-time. He died in the night. 
His wife told the story of his last groans and departure, 
making the strong point to be “ the terrible turn ” it 
gave her when he aroused her. James had his version 
too. ‘‘ While mother went to fetch the brandy, poor 
father said he would not have woke her and frightened 
her, but at the minute his head was so bad that he did 
not remember things. He seemed to have fancied it 
was long ago. Mother says he called her ‘Nellie,’ which 
he’d never used for years and years. He was dead before 
she came back. I was not frightened to be alone with 
him. What should make me frightened of father ?” 

Then came the question of Jem’s starting in life. The 
boy him self had formed no plan on the subject, and his 
mother settled it for him. He should not be a carpen- 
ter. That was just “a common working man.” She 
hated the cap and apron. I could not help thinking of 
the people at Nazareth eighteen hundred years ago. But 
what can you expect of such an ignorant woman as !Mrs. 
Watson, while great preachers and great painters, and 
people who think themselves great Christians, aU seem 


22 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


to forget that there was any work to be done in that 
Jewish household, and to fancy that the Virgin mother 
had nothing better to do, than to sit with her hands 
folded, making a mincing face ! O, if I could paint, 
wouldn’t I make a picture of Joseph and Jesus hard at 
work — hard at work, mind, like people who have to earn 
their next meal, and don’t grudge to have something over 
to give away. And Mary should be in the background 
cooking, not picture or novel-cooking, remember, where 
the heroine doesn’t redden her face, or soil her hands, 
but really cooking, and a little flushed and flustered, yet 
still m good temper. I sometimes think it is almost a 
pity to keep to the Eastern landscapes and dresses. 
Christ belongs to England as much as to Jerusalem, and 
we don’t read the Bible in Hebrew. But it isn’t every 
one that could translate it for himself, and it is not every 
body that can translate facts. It is not everybody who 
can realize that people in turbans and robes are just the 
same as people in hats and bonnets. It might bring the 
Bible more home to some of us, if we had pictures with 
the apostles in blouses and jackets, and the Pharisees in 
dress-coats, and Mary Magdalen in trailing flounces, 
\\dth a carotty-chignon. Does anybody say that the very 
idea is irreverent ? Let them take care that there is not 
more irreverence in their fancied veneration. Perhaps 
the same people will be disappointed when they get to 
heaven, if they do not find everything there like the 
pictures of it in their old family Bible. 

WeU, in order that Jem might satisfy his mother’s 
heart, by wearing broadcloth and beaver hke her rejected 
suitor’s sons, it was arranged that he should be appren- 
ticed to the linendraper. Does not this aU verify what I 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


23 


say about the effect of appeai’ances on modem people ? 
I wonder who you thinh I mean by common people.” 
Very hkely I mean you, unless you are that one in a 
hundred — or in a thousand — who dares to have a mind 
of your own, and to use it, without waiting unth a 
bishop or a prince has made it up for you. 

Jem took his mother’s decision very quietly. Once I 
saw him leaning over their garden paling and looking 
into the deserted shed. When he turned and his 
eyes met mine, I knew there was a bit of poetry in his 
mind. Now, never sigh over “mute, inglorious IMil- 
tons,” in whom 

“ Chill Penury repressed the noble rage, 

And froze the genial current of the soul.” 

I don’t beheve in them. AVhen God means a genius to 
speak, you may be sure that it speaks, under any circum- 
stances. Hasn’t genius spoken from all sorts of places 
— prisons, ploughed fields, factories, and shops? If 
there’s anywhere that it speaks seldomest, I think it is 
in king’s palaces, and rich men’s houses. But I do 
believe that God makes many geniuses that He never 
means to speak, except to Himself — like the wild flowers 
in the secret places of the mountains, blooming for His 
eyes only. We needn’fc sit down and make our silly 
moan over what we call the waste. Doesn’t God see 
depths of ugliness below what we see, and has He not a 
right to keep some beauty all to Himself ? Those 
mountain-flowers, living out their whole short life, and 
then peacefully fading dowm among the grass, need they 
envy the valley blossoms, torn up, and carried in hot 
hands, and botanised over, and put in vases, and forgot- 
ten, till somebody finds them • out by the smell of decay, 


24 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


and tells the rude truth of them, and tumbles them into 
the gutter, to be carried off by the dust-cart ? And yet 
on their part these valley-flowers may have pleased a 
child, or cheered an invalid. Let all be content. Those 
whom God uses in the world’s work may be broken in 
the task, but He can mend them. Those whom He 
keeps to Himself, who shall say they are of no use ? 
Doesn’t a rich robe look the better if the unseen lining 
is good ? He is but a poor merchant who has no stores 
but in his window. It is not a very fine character that| 
does not hide a grain or two of its pui'est gold. The* 
world was not made for you nor for me, nor yet for t> 
day. It was made for God and for Eternity- And 
depend .on it, it will fit its ends. But hasn’t Satan in- 
terfered, do you ask? Well, God knew that he would. 
Do you suppose that he took God by surprise ? I am 
not going to try to explain how it is : I am not such a 
fool as to think that I am wise enough for that. Only I 
am not at all afraid that Satan will get his own way in 
the least. Perhaps he fancies so, yet. But I scarcely 
think so. I believe he knows bitterly well that his work 
will all end in his own disappointment. Because I say 
this, you need not suppose that I have never felt as if all 
the good in the world was going to the dogs. But that 
did not alter the fact, and was only because I was in 
some danger of going to the dogs myself, which would 
have left the world but httle the poorer. I will give you 
a prescription in case you should ever feel so yourself. 
Read the thirty-seventh psalm. Then get to some active 
housework. If there is reasonable excuse, have up the 
carpets, and stir about all the furniture. If not, turn 
out the linen closet, or re-arrange the bookcase. If you 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


25 


have the misfortune to be a man, go for a long walk. 
Don’t take your pipe with you. Do five miles an hour. 
By the time you return, I daresay you may read the 
twenty-third psalm and go to bed. If you don’t think 
the world more hopeful next morning, I don’t know what 
is to be done with you, except that the sooner you are 
transplanted somewhere else, the better for everybody 
concerned, if not for yourself! You may say I bring 
subhme things to a very practical conclusion. But if 
people are not practical, what are they ? 

I did not think Jem quite liked his new position at 
the draper’s. He never said anything against it, except 
once “ that it seemed work that women might do.” I 
flatly told him I’d rather have him to serve me than any 
woman in existence. I don’t want to be hard upon my 
own sex, poor things. But human nature wiU be human 
nature, drill it how you may. And when a girl sees her 
sweetheart waiting for her at the other side of the 
street, how can she have patience with an old maid who 
keeps her in behind the coimter, while she chooses the 
exact shade of green which she flatters herself suits her 
best ? Of course the young men have sweethearts too, 
but then the sweethearts belong to the same sex as the 
old maid, which makes them a little merciful towards 
her. Besides, they know that their sweethearts will wait 
patiently enough, while the poor girls find theirs as cross 
as two sticks if they’re kept waiting, — that is to say, if 
they are good enough to wait at all ? So, you see, I own 
that it is not the girls’ fault, and I am not blaming them 
a bit ; and they will be the most charming creatures in 
creation when the men will permit them, — only in the 
meantime I prefer a man to serve me I 


2 


26 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


■When Jem was seventeen, he insisted on paying his 
subscription to my hbrary. I told him I thought he 
might take my kindness a httle longer for the sake 
of old acquaintanceship, when he had the impertinence 
to say that if he did, he would not be worthy of it. In 
those days, Jem used to come in sometimes of an 
evening, and sit with me for an hour or two. I daresay 
it was just a little livelier than at home with his mother, 
especially since about that time she heard a sermon that 
chanced to make her cry, which she set down as the 
date of her conversion, and straightway illustrated the 
graces of hope and charity by announcing that Mr. 
Watson had died in darkness, and that Jem was Hving 
in the same gloomy state. For she was one of those 
who do not know Eehgion unless it be ticketed, and in 
its case, as in all others, the genuine article has the least 
puffing. But her blunders did not do much harm — 
perhaps rather good. They shook Jem’s faith in him- 
self, but not in his Saviour. And so he stayed safely in 
the shadiest comers of the YaUey of Humiliation. And 
she never made him fret about his father. Jem knew 
more than she did. 

Three or four years later, when James was twenty- 
one, wejiad a pic-nic early in the summer. It was given 
by old Mr. Weston, of the Meadow farm, to celebrate the 
birthday of his eldest son’s son, which young man’s 
present age fixes the date as not much less than thirty 
years ago. It is a very good thing I am not ashamed 
of being an old woman, else I shordd have to hold my 
tongue. For I can scarcely tell any story, without dis- 
closing that I was middle-aged when middle-aged people 
were born. I am so amused to see the consternation of 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


27 


some of my contemporaries when they get confused into 
compromising themselves with ancient dates. I let them 
deceive themselves into the behef that they deceive other 
people, and then I take my revenge by wagging over 
their heads my superiority as their senior ! 

Well, we had our pic-nic, and we went to Hopleigh 
Wood. For a wonder, it was not a wet day. Of course 
there were twice as many women as men. There always 
are. And if there isn’t, it doesn’t matter ; for however 
much gallantry is in the market, it is sure to be absorbed 
by two or three girls ; and in nine cases out of ten, one 
of those will be a girl who has done caring for any gal- 
lantry at all, and is impartially lively and good-natured 
all round, and the other is going to be married to some- 
body who is not there, and the third is secretly engaged 
to somebody who is, and that is the young man, who to 
keep up appearances, holds himself aloof, and pays duti- 
ful but abstracted attention to some knowing old maid, 
— ^like me, who guesses aU about it, but has too much 
sense to say anything ! 

The beUe of that pic-nic was little Milly Hayden. She 
was an orphan, and the apprentice of our Mallowe mil- 
liner. At that time I suppose she was about seventeen, 
— a mite of a thing, with a dear httle head, turning about 
hke a bird’s. Milly was altogether like a bird ; even the 
friUs and fripperies of her dress seemed to have a natural 
coquetry in them, like a canary’s feathers. The women 
in general were not very fond of Milly, though they were 
friendly enough towards her, asking her to take tea with 
them, when they wanted to get a touch-up for their 
home-made bonnets, and keeping very close to her on 
such occasions as this pic-nic, and so deluding themselves 


28 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


into the belief that they each had their share in attract- 
ing the beaux that came about her. Aside, and especi- 
ally in conversation with their brothers and cousins and 
men-friends of all degrees, they said she was a nice girl, 
but giddy, and that was such a pity, for she would make 
a charming woman if she only had a httle prudence and 
industry for household management. Except old IVIrs. 
Boulder of Northend farm, who was left a widow at 
thirty, in debt, with six boys to bring up, and who, at 
sixty, was the chief businesss woman in Mallowe, with a 
farm like a picture, from corn-field to dairy, and every 
one of her sons well-doing before God and man. Mrs. 
Boulder carried an oaken staff, and had a habit of lean- 
ing on it with both hands, just as she did while she was 
judging the points of cows and horses, and criticizing 
her own hay and clover. Said Mrs. Boulder, “Milly 
Hayden is the right stuff to make a woman. Look at her 
eyes. Look at her mouth. Look at the way she moves. 
I wish I had a seventh son to marry Milly Hayden ! ” 

Of course everybody supposed that Milly was quite 
free. I never thought about it until that pic-nic, when, 
somehow, I began to fancy that my favorite Jamie was 
losing his heart to her. I took a httle notice then. She 
was full of fun and playfolness, but there was a tender- 
ness in her mirth, and a sort of pathetic gravity came 
over her whenever she was silent, which made me doubt 
whether she was not beginning to have more definite 
thoughts of the future than those mere girlish visions of 
“ whoever may be my husband — ^if I marry.” 

James walked home with her from Hopleigh Wood to 
the milhner’s door. He offered her his arm, but I heard 
her excuse herself, on the ground that she had to gather 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


29 


up her dress and to carry some wild flowers. She would 
not let him carry those wild flowers. And she began 
chatting with some other girl, and fixed her to walk with 
them. I chanced to pass the three, under the trees, and 
I thought MiUy’s face looked old and grave and scared. 
But James was in high delight. 

And he kept in high dehght for days after. And he 
took to reading the minor poets, — he, who had loved 
Bacon, and Milton, and the Arabian Nights ! I knew 
what it meant, and somehow, remembering Milly’s face 
under the trees that night, I was sorry for James. 

There are broad, sunny fields rising from Mallowe to 
Upper Mallowe, and between their hedge-rows winds a 
narrow lane. It is commonly known as Deadman’s 
Passage,” and it is certainly rather gloomy just where it 
cuts through the Minor Park, and is flanked by pitchy 
black palings instead of green hedge. But I persist in 
calling it Love Lane, which is a brighter name and a 
truer one. What is the use of connecting a place with 
the sohtary man who cut his throat m it eighty years 
ago, rather than writh the scores of couples who have 
walked there talking nonsense to each other every sum- 
mer since Mallowe existed ? This is the way we used to 
go and return from our Christmas parties when I was a 
young girl. It would not have taken us five minutes 
longer if we had kept to the high road. But there were 
generally eight or a dozen of us who Hved in the same 
direction and took care of each other on our way home, 
and we preferred anything that set our midnight walk a 
little in the hght of an adventure. I daresay some of us 
were fools enough to wish Love Lane twice as long as it 
is. The snow used to drift there inches deep, and it was 


30 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


fit to give us our deaths of cold, but I never heard that 
anybody was the worse ! I have always gone up it now 
and again for the sake of old associations. For though 
it is painful to walk alone where one went last night 
with a dear friend, yet ten years after it is sweet to go 
there and think it all over. It might tear open an emi- 
grant’s heart if he could have a telescope so strong as to 
show him the very home of his childhood, with his 
mother sittiug at the door, and the wicker cage hangiug 
over her head. But it soothes him to catch a distant 
glimpse of the sea that washes the shores of his father- 
land. And so I stfil go through Love Lane sometimes, 
and if I’m smihng when I meet the sheepish couples, I 
hope they don’t think I am laughing at them. I am an 
old maid, but my life is not altogether like an empty 
house, where there’s nothing to do but to put one’s head 
out of the window and watch the neighbors ! 

About three weeks after our pic-nic, I happened to 
take this sentimental stroU. It had been a sultry, close 
day, and the sun was setting in heavy, rolhng, storm- 
clouds. I like stormy sunsets. I don’t know why, imless 
it be that they put me in mind of the lives and loves that 
seem to go down in darkness, and give me hope that, 
after aU, they may have a bright dawn another day. 
Well, I walked on and on up Love Lane, and didn’t 
meet a creature. I supposed aU the sweethearts had 
been kept indoors by the great heat drops that had fallen 
once or twice. But at last, at a turn of the lane, I heard 
voices coming nearer, a man’s voice, deep, but di'awling 
and indifferent, and a girl’s, very sweet, in that sort of 
arpeggio note that seems to run from a smile to a tear. 
I knew who she was before I saw her. 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


31 


It was MiUy Hayden. And she was leaning on the 
ann of Frederick IVIiles, the miller’s son. He had been 
at the pic-nic with his mother and the rest of his family, 
and had not taken any notice of Milly. He had been 
within hearing of Mrs. Boulder’s comments, and I re- 
membered that he gave a pecuhar smile and turned 
away. The two were not walking as if this were their 
first ramble, nor their second, nor their third, nor any- 
thing within counting. The goal of the girl’s heart had 
been won before my friend James started in the race. 

They had to unlock their arms to let me pass. I gave 
a nod and a smile to Milly, and a very black look to 
Mr. kliles, behind her back. What on earth could she 
see in him ! For what was he, but a moustache and a 
gold watch and a suit of broad-cloth ? — unless indeed, 
she was worldly-minded, and thought something of his 
£5,000, and his acres behind the mill, and the crest on 
his signet-ring, for the Mileses were “ well-descended,” 
though I never heard that any of their ancestors did 
anything as creditable as Mfily Hayden’s dead father, 
who was a sergeant in the army, and was killed in India, 
going straight under fire to pick up a drummer-boy, 
whose foot was shot off. But I did not think Milly was 
worldly-minded. As for him, I could guess he was only 
taken with her pretty face and playful ways, much as a 
savage might seize a Bible for the sake of its gilt leaves. 

I walked up the lane, pondering. Perhaps Jemmy 
too had only been drawn to her by her taking” face. 
His father’s weakness might have descended to the son. 
Now I’m not sayiug a word against the love of beauty. 
Its perfection is just the love of Grod, and of lower things 
according to their likeness to God. But God is a Spirit, 


32 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


and our spirits are yet in the flesh. And it often happens 
that the sharp instruments with which God shapes the 
rough materials of our souls, cuts and wounds and wears 
away that flesh. You can’t do hard work and keep white 
hands. But we shall not have the same hand in heaven, 
and we shall have the same spirit. So brave Duty plants 
the seed of eternal beauty. But most people’s love of 
beauty is like a childish preference for a dandehon in- 
stead of a hard green rosebud. I think the angels 
smile at our aesthetics, — or perhaps they weep. 

So I walked on where Love Lane grows very steep 
and narrow. It is shady all through, but there the trees 
are thick and meet overhead, and it is very gloomy. 
Then there is a style, and just beyond the style, a sharp 
turn, and you find yourseK suddenly out of the dark lane, 
in a broad open field. At that time it was set with peas, 
and was so bright "with scarlet popies that the whole 
field was hke the great fat nosegays made up by inno- 
cent ungenteel country people. It burst upon you hke 
a flourish of trumpets after a sad old ballad. It was like 
David’s six joyful ^ songs at the end of the psalms. I 
stood still and looked, — and for a moment I forgot all 
about James and IVIilly and Mr. Miles. 

But when I turned to proceed, they were brought 
back to mind directly, for there was James coming in 
the opposite direction. He must have been in the field 
a few minutes, for he had quite a bunch of poppies, and 
was tying them up in some ferns. James was a great 
lover of wild flowers. Many a time had I hstened to his 
mother’s complaints “ how he Uttered the parlor with 
weeds and bracken, sticking them up m her best Bohe- 
mian vases, just as if they hadn’t a garden of their own. 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


33 


and good flowers tliat had cost money, without bringing 
home rubbish that a tinker would scorn to touch.” 
One day James overheard these comments, and he gave 
a queer little laughing nod, and a roguish glance from me 
to a book which he had from my shop more than once. 
I knew what he meant. “ Let the tinker scorn them — 
Wordsworth wouldn’t.” 

And here, let me say aside, isn’t it ridiculous to hear 
vulgar people depreciate things by the manner in which 
the lowest depreciate them, as if their taste and wisdom 
were the final standard of everything? For instance, 
I’ve often heard it said ‘‘ A beggar would not make such 
a fuss about a penny.” Of course not ! If he did, he 
would soon cease to bq a beggar ! If I wanted to learn 
the value of money, I should not go to street-sweepers, 
or navvies, I should go to great millionaires. And so 
with everything. 

Jem came forward snuling. “I’m gathering weeds, 
as usual,” said he ; “ and I’m uncommonly fond of these 
weeds. People seem to forget that God made them, and 
call them ‘flaunting,’ and all manner of ugly names. 
And yet some ladies that wouldn’t pick a real poppy in a 
meadow wfll wear the artificial ones in their bonnets, and 
think them fine enough then. I can’t think what fault 
folks find with these. If it’s because they wither soon, 
so does the rose. Not that I’m comparing the two. But 
all flowers can’t be roses. And I’m not sure that we’d 
think so much of the rose if there wasn’t anything else. 
And anyhow, the poppy likes good company — com and 
peas, and all sorts of useful things. This is a glory of a 
field. Miss Garrett. It’s like coming to a place in your 
life where you meet a happiness you never knew before, 


34 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


and it strikes yon at once, ‘ How ever did I live without 
it?’” 

Poor James ! The sun was very far down, and it was 
not to screen its light that I shaded my eyes. He was in 
paradise, — should I leave him there, though it was only 
a fool’s paradise? Ho, the longer the dream, the worse 
the wakening. And somehow, though I was not in 
James’s special confidence, I felt I should be false if I 
brought out what I had seen as a mere incidental re- 
mark ; so I said, quietly — 

“ I have just passed Milly Hayden and Mr. MTles in 
Love Lane.” 

‘‘ Together ? ” asked James, with a sudden stony look 
on his face. 

“ Yes, together,” I answered. “ If it is to be anything 
serious, I could have wished her a better choice.” 

James did not laugh it off as likely to be a bit of silly 
flirtation. No true lover could sincerely do so, whatever 
he might feign. James put down his gay nosegay on 
the top of the hedge, and folded his arms. He stood 
in silence a few minutes. Then I asked if he were com- 
iug my way. 

“I thiuk I’ll rest here awhile,” he said ; “so good 
evening, Miss Garrett.” 

• I had some business which kept me in Upper MaHowe 
till rather late. But as there was a bright moon, I took 
Love Lane for my homeward way. The field was empty 
— the tail poppies swaying m the breeze like dancing 
fairies. But in the moonhght I saw the Httle bunch left 
on the hedge. James had forgotten it. 

I was sorry for him. But I suppose everybody must 
spend two or three sleepless nights in their day, or else 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


35 


life would be incomplete. I know I bad my turn before 
then ; and I’m not sure but I’d willingly be awake to- 
night if I might care for anything as I did in those days. 
But there is no comfort in being sleepless now, for it is 
only because the supper has been too heavy, or some- 
thing of that sort. Even at the time of James Watson’s 
troubles, I could wake up and ponder over other people’s 
sorrows. I never even do that now. I put a word for 
them in my prayers, and then sleep soundly. Yet I do 
not think I am grown hard-hearted. It is rather because 
experience has made me certain that they wiU soon get 
out of their afflictions somehow. And what is the good 
of slowly killing oneseK in the meantime ? 

Before many days after, Edward Miles and Milly Hay- 
den openly walked up High Street together, and by such 
announcement of their engagement gave a new topic to 
the Mallowe gossips, which seemed very likely to last 
them until Miby should deepen the interest of the situa- 
tion by ordering her wedding gown. 

Then it was that I first wondered if I had done well 
to encourage James’s studious incbnations. More than 
once in my evening walks I saw him daundering about 
in the quietest comers, with no better company than his 
OTvn foobsh miseries. I do not deny that a ploughman, 
guiltless even of the alphabet, may be “ crossed in love,” 
but he scarcely knows what it means, and I believe that 
most diseases are made worse by knowing the fine names 
for them, and who died of them, and how the doctors 
treat them in directly opposite ways. Perfect knowledge 
may help nature, but sheer ignorance is better than half- 
and-half knowledge. And how is a young man or a girl, 
in the greenness of their first disappointment, to know that 


3 ^ 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


all the bewailing lyrical poets were not at all as wretched 
as they sing that they were, but kept good banking ac- 
counts — when they could, — and were often extraordina- 
rily particular about their dinners and their dress ? 

Poor James ! 

That autumn I was in the draper’s shop buying some 
Welsh flannel, when Milly and Mrs. Miles came in. The 
miller’s portly wife evidently did not feel unkindly to- 
wards her intended daughter, though she was quite in- 
capable of Mrs. Boulder’s stem appreciation. They 
wanted to buy some white satin ribbon and tulle. James 
served them. And he hunted out some httle speciahty 
that Mniy asked for, though I heard his master himself 
say that he did not think it was in the shop. I don’t 
mean to moralize. If you cannot see anything in the 
scene, never mind. It is worth while to describe a pic- 
ture to a blind man, but I do not think one need to ex- 
plain it to an idiot. Let him put his finger in his mouth 
and gape, — but I hope I am not saying anything per- 
sonal i 

As Miliy was leaving she caught sight of me, and 
turned back to leave a bright smile and word behind, 
and then tripped on after her future mother-in-law. 

That was the last time we ever saw pretty rose-bud 
Milly Hayden. 

Only the evening after, an awful whisper went down 
the village street, and frightened eyes were lifted to the 
white-curtained window above the milliner’s shop. Milly 
had sickened that morning, and the doctor had been, 
and now a strange nurse had arrived, and, under their 
breath, people spoke of malignant small-pox.” 

It was true. And so there was a grand exodus from 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


37 


Mallowe. The Manor people went to the sea a fortnight 
earher than their wont, and Miss Yix had a sudden fit 
of niecely dutifulness to an old aunt at a distance, and 
the whole family of Mileses left Mill Corner. 

“Edward couldn’t do any good if he stayed,” said 
Mrs. Miles to me, when she called at my shop the day 
before they started, to procure the last new novels to 
beguile their journey. “ And, besides, one doesn’t know 
how it may end, so the sooner his mind is diverted the 
better. Milly was a sweet, pretty creature ” (she used 
the dreadful past tense already). “ I tell my girls it is 
an awful instance of the uncertainty of aU earthly 
things.” 

That same afternoon Mrs. Boulder looked in upon me, 
with a great basket in her hand, while the strange stamp 
of determined purpose gave her stern features a sort of 
solemn enthusiasm. 

“ I’m going to Milly, Miss Garrett,” she said. “ They’re 
making a fine to-do at home about it ; but I told them 
I’d brought them aU up and done my fair duty to them, 
and if I find I’ve a bit of heart and strength over, I’ve a 
right to use it how I like. MiUy’s father lost his hfe 
caring for somebody else’s child, so shouldn’t somebody 
run a httle risk for his ? Good-bye, Miss Garrett. I 
don’t suppose any harm will come to me, but one never 
knows. Good-bye.” 

The ghastly distemper did its worst, but Milly did not 
die. Though once the sick-nurse said grimly, “ She’ll 
maybe wish she had.” 

Mrs. Boulder went safely through her seK-imposed 
duties, and as soon as possible she carried the invahd 
away for change of air. Nobody saw them before they 


38 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


went. And while they were away all the fugitives came 
back, and Mallowe settled down again. 

Once, after the family had returned, Edward Miles was 
missing for two days, and it was whispered that he had 
taken a trip to see MiUy. And people looked at each 
other, and shook their heads, and Miss Vix said that 
“ beauty was only skin-deep,” and she had “ heard that 
love had wings.” 

It was a chilly autumn afternoon when a fly drove up 
to my door, and IVIrs . Boulder and Mflly got out. They 
sent on their luggage, and came in to pay me a visit. 

Yes, we had certainly seen pretty rosebud Milly for 
the very last time. Now, I saw a small thin woman with 
fur about her throat and blue spectacles over her eyes. 
There was no trace of the saucy little nose, or the 
dimpled chin, or the laughing mouth. All the purply 
horror of the disease was gone, but it had left a white, 
sharp, scarred face. It was difficult to feel that she was 
not a perfect stranger. 

“ MiUy is her father’s own daughter,” said Mrs. 
Boulder that evening, as we three sat about the fire, 
“for she caught the pestilence through guiding a 
tramper woman into the right road to Hopleigh, where 
we hear the poor creature died in the work house three 
days after.” 

“ You shouldn ’t speak of it, IVIrs. Boulder,” said the 
subdued, altered voice, “for it was nothing, and besides, 
I don’t think I could have done it, — if I’d known ! ” 

“ You did it, and that’s enough,” said the old lady, 
and then passed on to other conversation, in which Mflly 
sustained a cheerful though modest part. I noticed 
her right hand fingering the thm finger of her left one. 


MILLY HAYDEN. 39 

I fancied I remembered gbe had worn an engaged 
ring. But her hands were bare now. 

“Yes, indeed,” nodded Mrs. Boulder, while the girl 
went away to amuse herself with a new packet of books 
I had just received from London. “ Yes, he has given 
her up. She offered him the free chance, and he took 
it ! I’ve never wished I was a man before, but I wish I 
was one now, and wouldn ’t I give him a good taste of 
pump'Water ! A week in the country gaol would be a 
cheap purchase of the pleasure it would give me ! Or I 
don’t know whether a cart-tail and a horsewhip wouldn’t 
do better than the pump. Don’t say I’m coarse. I 
don’t care. If one of my sons had played Edward 
Miles’ false game, he should never have darkened my 
doors again. No ! ” 

How was it that a few days after I found James in 
high spirits ? — and what made him say to me, “ Perhaps 
she never cared much for him, Miss Garrett ? ” 

Milly went back to her work, and appeared at church 
and in the Sunday-school as usual. At first, there was 
a feeling of sympathy for her and indignation against 
Mr. IMiles. But these sensations always die out pres- 
ently, and then IVIilly was left to slip into the back- 
ground of general village society. She took it calmly and 
quietly, and was as cheerful as ever, though in a different 
key. It was hard to guess how much she suffered. Wise 
old Mrs. Boulder shook her head, and said MiUy was not 
the girl to cry after any man, except in her heart. But 
everybody cannot be wise, and nobody is wise always. 
So James Watson waited upon MiUy at tea-parties, and 
took her home from them, and spoke to her at the church 
door, where he always happened to be entering andleav- 


40 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


ing at the same time. And at the end of twelve months, 
just as the leaves were again turning brown, James Wat- 
son made Milly an offer of marriage. 

He told me about it himself, with the melancholy pre- 
face that “ one must speak to somebody.” 

“ She seemed quite astonished,” he narrated. “ She 
said she thought I had taken special notice of her just 
out of pity ! Out of pity ! She spoke very kindly, Miss 
Garrett ; but she wouldn’t hear of it. She said she had 
loved Edward IMiles, and she did not feel that she did 
not love him still, and she knew that she did not love 
anybody else. She says she had made up her mind that 
she is to be a single woman. So I told her. Then I must 
be a single man ! ” 

“ You’re a pair of fools, for your comfort,” I told him. 
And that was all the sympathy he had from me. What 
w^as the use of making a palaver that would have soften- 
ed his soft heart still more. He wanted tonic treatment, 
and I gave it to him. 

Time passed on. Edward Miles came into a consider- 
able fortune left by a bachelor uncle, and presently he 
married a girl with a fine face and a good income at her 
own disposal. I^Irs. Miles sat in my library gossiping 
with some other old woman, and driving me nearly wild 
by saying, “ After all, it was true that it was indeed an 
iU wind that blew nobody good, and the family could 
take up this match much more warmly than they ever 
could the other, though, to be sure. Miss Hayden was as 
nice a girl as could be, who was nothing, and belonged 
to nobody, and hadn’t a penny of her own.” 

The young Miles’ couple did not settle in Mallowe, but 
went some distance away, and however much the old 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


41 


miller and his wife might approve of the marriage, they 
certainly saw but little of their son and his bride. 

At that time I think James made Milly another offer, 
and was refused again. He did not tell me anything 
about it, but I noticed that thenceforth they stood on a 
different footing toward each other — an intimate, old- 
neighbourly, half-cousinly relationship. They were each 
in business for themselvs now, and James used to buy 
for MiUy, and throw work in her way, and help her with 
her tax-papers, and all the other trials of unprotected 
females. James and his mother stiU lived together in 
the old house, whence he came and went to his shop ; 
and Mrs. "Watson was as discontented as ever, and made 
her son’s life as burdensome as she could, though she 
triumphantly dwelt on the fact, that her boy kept to his 
old mother, that he did, and didn’t think that he couldn’t 
be happy unless he put some dressed-up chit over her 
head, repeating the same thing to James in a different 
version — that he knew what was good for himself ; 
and depend on it, all the simpletons that were forever 
going and getting married rued it ever after. Not as it 
wasn’t to be expected in fine, handsome young men, like his 
own father had once been, or hke Edward Miles was now ; 
but a poor creature hke him, that no girl was likely to run 
after, was quite safe from temptation — the better for him . 

James smiled and answered, “ Yes, mother.” 

And all the while in Mallowe itself, and in every 
town and city in Great Britain, silly girls and silher old- 
maids sat behind Venetian blinds, and strummed “ The 
Troubadour,” and lamented over man’s fickleness and 
the end of chivalry ! They have eyes for the like of Ed- 
ward Mhes, but they don’t notice James Watson. 


42 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


And so !Milly grew middle-aged — and became such a 
beloved and respected village antbority, that we forgot 
aU about her appearance, until one day some hterary 
lion, visiting at the Rectory, was heard to remark, “ What 
an interesting, gracious-looking woman ! ” That opened 
all our minds to the change that Time had so gradually 
wrought. The dreadful scars were much worn away, 
and she no longer used spectacles, and though there was 
no “ dance ” in her eyes, there was a clear, steady light 
that was as beautiful in its way. And her mouth had 
fulfilled the promise which keen Mrs. Boulder had seen 
in its budding youth. You could not fancy it uttering 
anything but wisdom and kindness — ^just the mouth to 
give last kisses to the dying. Milly’s hair had been very, 
very thin since that dreadful illness, but now she wore a 
soft lace cap, and the few locks that strayed in front had 
that peculiarly dehcate beauty which fine hair often pos- 
sesses in advancing life. And MiUy could afford black 
silk dresses now, and was seldom seen in anything else 
But it struck me then, and I believe it still, that the con- 
sciousness of James Watson’s faithful love had something 
to do with the strange, sweet charm which grew about 
Milly. There had been a rent in her hfe, but out 
of its black chasm had grown a wondrous fair flower, 
which had pitifully clothed its yawning horror. She 
seemed to wear it hke a consecration. And yet I could 
never help feeling angry with her. WTby wouldn’t she try 
to love James ? We never know what we can do till 
we try. 

Mrs. Edward Miles died. We, the people of Mallowe, 
had never seen much of her, though some of us kept a 
very vivid recollection of the fine silks and velvets which 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


43 


she had worn on the few occasions that she had come 
among us. Now she died and was buried. The two 
Misses Miles who remained unmarried, put themselves 
into very deep mourning, and a new name was written 
on the great heavy mausoleum wherein the old miller 
and his wife already reposed. We heard that the wid- 
ower went abroad, and we heard nothing more of him 
until fuUy a year after his wife’s death, when, having 
doffed every sign of his bereavement, he suddenly reap- 
peared amongst us at a Christmas gathering. 

There he saw Milly, “ and he spoke to her,” said my 
informant, who happened to be Miss Vix, “ of course only 
out of civihty. But Miss Hayden colored up like a girl 
when she saw him, as if she thought that maybe he 
might not think so much of good looks now. But la ! 
he’s a richer man than he was in those days, and he 
knows the world now, and his own value, and he’s a 
handsome man still, though a little cross-looking, but no 
doubt the last IMrs. Edward tried his temper.” 

In these days, IVIr. Edward Moles kept a neat Httle 
brougham, and only two days after that Christmas gath- 
ering, this brougham stood at Miss Hayden’s door. I 
think it stood there fuUy an hour, and Miss Vix owned 
that she watched it the whole time, — but she did not see 
much for her pains. When IMr. IMiles left, Milly’s ap- 
prentice let him out, and he seemed to speak sharply to 
his coachman, but very likely he always did. 

In the course of that evening, I met Milly stepping 
down the High Street, with an awed, earnest look on her 
face. She did not see me, and there was something about 
her that forbade me to stop her. 

That night I chanced to sit up late, neither through 


44 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


Christmas dissipation nor Christmas mooning, I can assure 
you, but just because of stock-taking. When I had finished, 
I went to the window and looked out I love a frosty, star- 
light night, and especially I love it in a long, quiet street, 
where one can see firehghts from happy family rooms, and 
glimmering candlelights from innocent chambers, where 
mothers are putting their .children to bed. I once heard 
. a little girl ask if the stars were angels taking care of us 
while the sun was asleep. And, I am not sure that the 
child did not get nearer to the warm heart of truth, than 
did our MaUowe astronomer, who brought himself to the 
parish by neglecting his proper business while he sat at 
his telescope, where he seemed to learn nothing but a lot 
of distances that nobody could ever remember. Not 
that I have some old women’s scorn of science. I think 
it is like a very clever boy, getting on fast and naturally 
a httle positive and conceited sometimes. We can have 
patience with that, but it is a little hard that it expects us 
to swear by each of its conclusions, though it is sure to 
advance to another in six months’ time. Before it ex- 
pects us to beheve that we are aU in the wrong, and that 
Moses made mistakes, and Solomon did not know what 
he was writing about, cannot it wait till it has quite fin- 
ished its lessons ? 

The house opposite to mine was dark enough. It was 
Mfily Hayden’s. I was just wondering whether she had 
come home, when two long shadows came sloping down 
the moonlit pavement. They were cast by two little peo- 
ple, Milly and James. They stopped at her door ; and, 
as I didn’t suppose anything particular was about to hap- 
pen, I stayed at the window. Well ! After what I saw 
at their parting — though it is not hkely that I’m going to 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


45 


tell you wliat it was — I was not at all astonished when 
next Sunday the bands were published between James 
Watson and IVIilHcent’ Hayden. 

Eighteen months after, I heard all about the events of 
that winter day. How the moment Millicent saw her old 
lover at the party, once more free, she felt as by a sudden 
revelation that her love for him was utterly dead ; how 
his visit to her was made with a view to renewing them 
old hopes ; how it was her turn to teU him that her 
heart was changed, and that it could not be ; how the 
new wisdom brought a new knowledge with it, and she 
felt a wild conviction that it was due to James to tell 
him ihat she had rejected the man for whose sake she had 
refused him ; how she never knew how she did it, nor 
what she said, nor anything that happened, till she felt 
her hand clasped in James’s, and heard him saying : — 

‘‘ Though God’s goodness may tarry long, yet it comes 
at last.” 

How did I hear all this? Millicent Watson told me 
the story ; MiOicent Watson in a widow’s cap, seated be- 
side me near her husband’s grave. He had just one year 
of the happiness he had longed and waited for. And 
then he went away to be with the angels. “ How could 
I hawe died without you ? ” he said to MiQy before he 
went. And she kissed him. And he was satisfied. 

They had no child, and the one rehc of MiUy’s short 
married life was her husband’s cankered, complaining 
mother. But for his sake, she loved the burden almost 
passionately, — and her mother-in-law did not give her 
kindness much rest. 

“Ah,” old Mrs. Watson used to say, “what a bless- 
ing it is that after Jem had kept single so long, he got mar- 


46 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


lied before be died, so that I am not left quite alone in 
my old age ! It bas been managed pretty comfortably 
for me after all, and I suppose Tve no right to murmur, 
tbougb it’s bard to be brought to depend on a stranger, 
when, if I’d done as I might have done in my young days 
I should be a widow well left, and under no obhgation 
to anybody ! ” 

You see the old woman’s history was all written in cap- 
ital I’s. I think she must have used up her son’s share 
of that letter, for his hfe seemed to have none at aU. 

Now, if Mniy had been a lady m a castle on the Rhine, 
and James had been a knight in rusty armor, this would 
have been fit stuff for a baUad ; but, as circumstances 
stand, why do I condescend to tell such a commonplace 
story ? 

Why did Moses tell us of Jacob and Rachel ? Why 
did somebody write of Boaz and Ruth ? Because each 
of our fives has to write a love-story of its own, and our 
loving Father gave us one or two pure ideals to write it 
after. And, in tliis age, which thinks itself so reasonable 
because it fancies it has done with romance, I believe that 
anybody who catches an echo of the old sweet song, does 
good service. For echoes repeat themselves, and even 
the faint echo of a faint echo is better than dead silence. 

If there were more men like James Watson, where 
would sensation-novelists obtain their plots ? And 
wouldn’t the judge in the Divorce Court have a pair of 
white gloves every session. 

Let us thank God for real romance. It seldom takes 
good root in this world, but still it spreads a sweet per- 
fume around it, while some innocent life bears it through 
to a better country. 


MILLY HAYDEN. 


47 


But Satan keeps a bad imitation of it. And it is just 
that which fills sensation-novels, and crowds the Divorce 
Court, and the Pohce Court, and most of the other courts 
— regal and legal. 

And Satan contrives to have them both called by the 
same name, so that fools should not know them apart ! 
And the result is^ that respectable fools are generally 
afraid of either, except in poetry and story-books.. 


II. 


MISS FELICIA 


Y brother Edward looked very gravely at me one 



iVL day last spring. He thought he saw the first symj)- 
toms of second childhood. What but dotage could prompt 
a woman of my age, with servants at command, to go 
through the rain to make some trumpeiy purchase at the 
far end of the village ? He spoke so softly to me, and waited 
upon me at dinner, as if he thought my activity had fol- 
lowed my wits. I should have liked to box his ears for 
his pains. Though I am older than he, I do not seem 
like it ; and I can never help hoping that I shall die be- 
fore I need to be taken care of. I trust it is not very 
wicked, for I foster another hope, that God will fit me to 
his will, whatever that will may be ; and, as long as we 
keep that foremost, I do not think He will be angry with 
a wish that waits patiently in the background. God may 
choose to pour his loving-kindness into the httle moulds 
of our fancy. Does not the Psalmist say, “ Grant thee 
according to thine own heart ? ” So I am always silent 
while they pray, “ From sudden death, good Lord, de- 
liver us.” 

I wonder what Edward would think if he knew that 
after I bought the cotton and tapes which formed the ex- 
cuse for my extraordinary ramy walk on that miserable 
morning, I went on still farther — ^past the field which ter- 


MISS FELICIA. 


49 


minates Love Lane, and up tlie broad High Eoad, and 
stopped before the great gates of the Clockhouse.' How 
astonished the lodgekeeper was to see me ! “ But, I’m 

glad you’ve happened to come this way,” she said, “ for 
the carpets will be taken up to-night, and that’s the begin- 
ning of the end that won’t leave one stone upon another. 
So you’ve got just the last chance of a look over the pld 
place.” 

The Clockhouse stands in its own grounds ; that is to 
say, it has a wide lawn in front, and a flower-garden, or- 
chard, and paddock behind. It is a long, red-brick house, 
only one story high, with four bow windows and a great 
porch on its basement, and eight smaller windows above. 
A square tower rises over the porch, and is adorned by a 
clock and a weather-vane. The house was built in the 
reign of James I., by a family named Dimsdale, of some 
condition in the country, who distinguished themselves 
on the repubhcan side, in the subsequent civil war. 

It is little information to say that the presiding Hims- 
dale of my youth was a Mr. Hewett, for nearly all the 
eldest sons of the family had been of that flk, — a pecu- 
Uarity which threw so much confusion and perplexity over 
their domestic history, that a wag of the house had once 
suggested the propriety of distinguishing them by nu- 
merals. But the Mr. Hewett Dimsdale of my early re- 
collections, was the last w^ho ever bore the name. When I 
first remember him, he was far past his prime ; though his 
only daughter, of the same age as myself, was stiU in very 
early childhood. He had come into his estates rather 
late in hfe ; and, as he was of a jovial, easy nature, one 
of those prone to make large and often needless conces- 
sions to the comfort of others, I imagined he preferred 
3 


50 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


remaining single to disturbing bis aged mother^s domin- 
ion at the Clockhouse. However, her death left him a 
free and wealthy bachelor at forty- seven ; and, as soon 
as the period of mourning was over, he took a trip to 
London, as my mother used to say, greatly to the con- 
sternation of the local families, amongst whom there was 
a sufficient amount of unappropriated beauty to render the 
possible escape of a rich man, of handsome exterior and 
unimpeachable character, a most unwelcome event. But 
Mr. Hewett Dimsdale was bent on seeing the world, and it 
is to be presumed that he set about so doing, in the stereo- 
typed fashion, by putting himself under the charge of an 
old neighbor’s son, long resident in the West End of the 
metropolis, who sought to improve him, rustic from the 
society of squires and yeomen, by the conversation of ac- 
tresses and singers, and such small fashionable wits and 
litterateurs, as are easily accessible to any unknown man 
of moderate means. The dames and demoiselles in the 
granges and halls round Mallowe shook their heads and 
sought to convince themselves that the sheep which had 
gone out from their fold was only a black sheep after all. 
But ]Mr. Hewett Dimsdale had carried his honest coun- 
try heart to the ffippant city — a heart like a sturdy wild- 
flower, able'to survive a rough wind or a foul odor. His 
virtues were not of the mimosa type, instinctively shrink- 
ing from evil, rather they hardily refused to see it, or to 
beheve in it. The people among whom he went told un- 
kind stories even of each other, but that he set down as 
“ scandal,” and rebuked it with such honest heartiness 
that the very echo of vice died out in his presence. I re- 
member when I was a girl, a little withered woman came 
to our shop, who had been in the coterie to which IVJr. 


MISS FELICIA. 


51 


Dimsdale was introduced. I think she had been an ac- 
tress, or an actor’s wife, and she did not mince matters, 
or soften phrases ; but what struck me were these words : 
‘‘ He believed in us so thoroughly, that it made us wish 
we could believe in ourselves.” One of the reminiscen- 
ces of my own childhood is, of being taken into the shop 
to speak to the old gentleman. I had spent a naughty 
morning, and when he stroked my head, and called me 
“ a dear, good little girl — mammy’s blessing,” I turned 
to my mother, sobbing out : “ Tell him I’m not good at 
all, and I’m a great trouble to you ! ” Ah, God purifies> 
the world by gentle zephyrs as well as by north winds 
From those West End back drawing-rooms, with their 
tarnished gilding and faded damask — ^fitting types of the 
hves lived in them — Mr. Hewett Dimsdale brought home a 
wife, by name Fehcia Sheiiett. The Sherletts had emerged 
from obscurity before the Dimsdales. They had family 
traditions nearly two hundred years earlier. Instead of 
the grave, simple stories of the Cromwelhan Hewett Dims- 
dale, brave and true, and loyal with the highest loyalty, 
and of the honest gentlemen who had kept his name as 
stainless as he left it, they had legends of crusaders and 
troubadours, of knights iu the suite of shameful Queen 
, Isabel’s “gentle Mortimer,” of a name mentioned in 
Catherine Howard’s divorce, of more than one familiar in 
Whitehall, and so on, through tawdry makeshifts and 
disgraceful debt, to Fehcia Sherlett’s father, hah adven- 
turer, half sponge, and whole scoundrel. Very hkely 
Hewett Dimsdale thought him nothing worse than “ a 
very clever fellow, but without ballast.” Fehcia Sherlett 
must have been nearly thirty when the Squire first met 
her ; and, though she had been a motherless girl, left in 


52 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


very dangerous places, no more damaging report readied 
tlie Mallowe gossips, than that she might be styled either 
a “ companion ” or a “ professional musician,” since her 
father had often left her to eke out her existence by such 
services, though, as they were rendered to people who 
knew all about her family-name, and the mortgaged es- 
tate in Sunderland, her remunerations had been wavering 
returns in kind, rather than business-like payments of 
cash. A strange, heart-starved life, from which a larger 
soul must have risen into sainthness, or sunk into the 
deeper depths behind those back drawing-rooms. If Miss 
Sherlett had had a better nature, she might have had a 
worse character. Neither bad nor good seed will flour- 
ish on stony ground. But she was one of those women 
who can be quite satisfled by silk dresses, and old china, 
and tea-parties, and by dint of flattery and fawning, and 
a fortitude worthy a better cause, she had always been 
able to secure a certain share of these luxuries. She 
might wear her heart out in scheming to obtain the more, 
without losing the less, and she might swallow insults and 
endure contumely till her whole moral nature was as im- 
pervious as tanned leather, but she was tolerably safe 
from one group of temptations, though none the purer 
for such safety. 

When Mr. Dimsdale met her she was “ staying ” at 
the house of some civil servant, her connection by mar- 
riage ; where, in return for board, lodging, and pre- 
sents of such dresses as her cousin tired of, she was ex- 
pected to endure all that lady’s caprices, and aU the un- 
chidden rudeness of the ohve branches. I dare say, her 
unfortunate position was her first charm to Hewett Bims- 
dale. I can understand how she would intuitively read 


MISS FELICIA. 


53 


his chivalrous heart, and then turn towards him the pa- 
thetic side of the annoyances which had long ceased to 
sting her. A forlorn hope which she had tried so often, 
that all painful excitement had left it ; but she had a 
strong courage, and did it once again, even while she 
turned over in her mind schemes concerning lady-house- 
keeping, and chaperonesliips, and such other grooves 
where a well-born woman may find bread, till she slips 
out of sight in the dust of the family vault — ^not yet mort- 
gaged. 

I wonder how she felt in her first retirement, after Hew- 
ett Dimsdale made his ofier ? Depend on it, she knew 
all about the Clockhouse, and the rent-roll, long before 
that. Was there a spark of gratitude struck in that bat- 
tered, hardened heart, a spark that might brighten into 
a flame of love, that should re- vitalize it into new youth ? 
Or, did she just take it as another barter — a better bar- 
gain than she had made before, — a longer “ stay ” for 
better board and lodging, and dresses at first hand? 
Did she pout a little at the thought of the country house 
among clodhoppers, and then reflect that it might prove 
an easier condition than her cousin’s vapors, and the 
children’s insolence? I dare say, the thought which 
stirred her deepest in that personal soul which everybody 
keeps somewhere, though it may be shallow and small, 
was the shock which it would give to the circle she was 
leaving. Of course, I did not know her till years after ; 
but, reading her backwards, I can guess that she was cruel 
in her petty triumph, and that, during the very few weeks 
of her engagement she gave her connections a hberal re- 
turn of the humble-pie she had eaten at their hands, and 
that the cousin, in whose house she closed her maiden 


54 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


career, was very minutely taught the distinction between 
the wife of a mere official, and the lady of a landed pro- 
prietor. 

Hewett Dimsdale had her portrait painted on their 
marriage. It represents a slender woman, with wide 
open blue eyes, very pink cheeks, a long neck, and a lack- 
adaisical droop of the head, — so much the lineaments 
which smirk at us from most of the fashionable portraits 
of the Eegency, that one is inclined to question its indi- 
viduahty. Yet, when I knew her, Mrs. Dimsdale’s coun- 
tenance certainly had one trait of which a good artist could 
have made a strong point. She had a steel-trap mouth. 
There was no fleshiness about its muscles, no humorous lit- 
tle dimple beneath the lower hp, no curve at its comers to 
tell tales of cheerfulness or discontent. It was a mouth 
made to eat and to speak, — and especially to scold, in a 
satirical, raspmg, genteel way, but not a mouth for whis- 
pering or kissing. 

Well, Hewett Dimsdale seemed quite satisfied with 
her. He thought her a superior being. He was of a 
hopeful, credulous nature, and if there were a few cor- 
ners of his heart which she did not fiU, he thought it 
was because she was too large, and not too little ! This 
is what aU the village people said of the Dimsdales. 
This is how we human beings judge. If anybody is 
cheerful, let us say it is because they do not feel ! That 
prevents their contentment being any reflection upon 
ourselves, who have finer feelings and nerves than any- 
body else since the world began. Perhaps Hewett Dims- 
dale very soon understood liis w'ife perfectly, and in his 
great pitiful tenderness thought more of her loss, iu not 
beiug aU he had fancied her, than of his own. She was 


MISS FELICIA. 


55 


a good wife in her own way. She ruled his household 
with a strict hand, and she made his income go half as 
far again as it had ever gone before, and she had fault- 
less dinners and dressed perfectly, and was as good a 
sick nurse as any w^oman can be, who has no idea that 
an invalid needs anything beyond dainty diet and punc- 
tual medicines. And all of these attentions Hewitt 
Dimsdale appeared to receive with a wondering, touch- 
ing gi’atitude. Was it because he knew these were all 
that she could give, — because he was so sorry that she 
could give no more? Is there not always a pathetic\ 
value set on the httle that is, which might be so much 
greater ? Is not the sickly flower reluctantly growing 
in a stony town garden more valued than all the gay 
beauties in the florist’s greenhouse ? Do not the far- 
between letters and stray gifts of the spendthrift child 
win something which the life-long service of the dutiful 
son does not obtain ? Is there not joy in heaven over 
the one sinner who repenteth more than over the ninety- 
nine just men who need no repentance ? God forgive 
me, but to put in plain words the feeling which has often 
lui'ked at the bottom of my heart, it has seemed to me 
that the bent of human nature is to be unjust, and that 
God encouraged it. ^ 'Vf’ell, — I know better now, and it 
comforts me that the prodigal’s father did not say one 
angry word to his sulking elder son, while he patiently 
explained, “ Thou art ever with me, and aU that I have 
is thine.” Ah, the prodigal brought to himself would 
not have again gone through his rebellion, and debauch- 
ery, and husks, for the sake of the welcome and the 
fatted calf. Depend on it, he dropped one or two bitter 
tears in that festival, sighing, “ To think how I grieved 


56 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


SO good a father !” For if not, lie would be tolerably 
sure to go back to liis dissipations, comforting himself 
that if they failed hhn again he would know where to 
turn, until at last he would grow to prefer the husks and 
‘‘ hberty ” to the fatted calf and his father’s presence, 
and would come back no more. 

As I said before, tlie Dimsdales had but one daughter, 
and it happened that she was born on the same day as 
myself, which invested me with a sort of interest in the 
kindly eyes of the Squire, and from that time the friend- 
ship with which he had always favoured my father was 
widened to include my mother and the baby. Both 
my parents and he were simple minded people, among 
whom no troublesome thoughts of class arose. They 
did not know that because one hved by the produce of 
his ancestral fields, and the other by his shop, they ought 
to be natural enemies. It never occurred to my father 
to ask himself troublesome questions, such as why he, 
a God-fearing, well-instructed man, with whom the Squire 
loved to argue, though he always had the worst of it, 
was yet never invited to dine at the Clockhouse, while 
the master of Hopleigh Manor, a sot and a clown, sat 
at the Dimsdale board at least once a month. Neither 
of them ever bothered themsefves about such matters. 
The Squire came to the shop, and sat on the counter, 
and talked and laughed, and on one occasion got so 
deep in discussion that he was almost too late for a din- 
ner party at the Manor-house. He used to talk to my 
mother about “ iVIrs. Dimsdale,” and to let her know that 
he talked to Mrs. Dimsdale about her. He told her how 
Mrs. Dhnsdale wished their httle girl looked as healthy 
as I. How Mrs. Dimsdale admired some snug winter 


MISS FELICIA. 


57 


hood my mother had made for me, in place of some 
aggravating bonnet that was always slipping off my 
head. And at last, one day he brought Mrs. Dimsdale 
with him to look at some engraving which my father 
had on sale. A shower came on while they were in the 
shop, and the lady was good enough to step into our 
parlour until the carriage could be sent round. There 
she partook of a cup of tea. I was about seven years 
old at the time, but I remember that visit as weU as I 
remember yesterday. What a long feather she had on 
her bonnet. How fast she talked. How my mother was 
“ dear madam ’’ at every sentence. What a little dar- 
ling I was. How she had never tasted nicer tea. What 
a love of a dog we kept. What a sweet place the par- 
lour was ; the whole twenty windows of the Clockhouse 
hadn’t such a prospect as we enjoyed from its sohtary 
casement. And would my mother give her the recipe 
for the delightful tea-cakes ? My mother was writing it 
out when the Squire came back. He awaited its conclu- 
sion just a httle impatiently, calling me to him and ask- 
ing me if I would hke to see real oranges growing on a 
tree. He had some, would I like to look at them ? — 
endmg with an invitation that I should go to the Clock- 
house next day, and have a game with his little Fehcia, 
and partake of strawberries and cream with her and her 
nurse. 

When they were gone, my mother was enthusiastic in 
Mrs. Dimsdale’s praises, but my father made a queer 
face and said, “ She keeps plenty of small change, but 
his least coin is genuine gold.” 

I spent a very pleasant day at the Cloclihouse. It is 
the first gala which I distinctly remember. Miss Felicia 
3 * 


58 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


was about balf a bead shorter than me — a fair, trans- 
parent-looMng child, whom I at once made^ my ideal of 
loveliness, and put her face and figure into aU my favour- 
ite story-book heroines. Miss Felicia did not talk very 
much, and she was not quick at learning games, nor very 
lively in playing them, but she had gentle little ways of 
taking hold of one’s hand, or putting one’s sash neat 
when it came awry. Her father called her “ Mousie,” 
and it seemed the most appropriate name for the httle 
thing who crept into your heart you didn’t know why. 

From that time, I occasionally spent a day at the 
Clockhouse. Not sufficiently often for us to feel it awk- 
ward to call each other “ Miss Fehcia ” and “ Miss Euth,” 
but yet often enough for a considerable attachment to 
grow up between Fehcia and me. I was fascinated by 
her softness and grace, and she had a foohsh admiration 
and reverence for the prizes which I brought every half 
year to show the Squire and his lady. I never missed 
a prize whenever prizes were given, and the last half- 
year I was at school I won three. It was not because 
I was very bright, but because the other girls were very 
stupid. But that is just what one may say of the prize- 
winners in the world as well as at school. Why, those 
we call great men are only great because the mob is so 
httle. Don’t you feel when you study the very grandest 
life, “ This great man was no more than he ought to be, 
nor so much — but then I, and most people, are so terri- 
bly less. He is not even quite up to the mark which 
God has set on our own consciousness as the normal 
height of humanity, but he is so much nearer to it than 
we are.” And when you read the wise sayings of the 
wisest — Shakespere, Bacon, Solomon even — does not a 


MISS FELICIA. 


59 


voice in you reply to them that you knew it all before- 
hand — that their words are only like the fire bringing 
out the illegible writing on your own mind. Are we 
not something like people who have lost their memories 
in fever or madness, and must learn over again what they 
have forgotten. Does not what we call genius seem to 
be well typified by that sudden flash with which doctors 
tell us such lost learning sometimes returns? Is not 
all our mental and moral movement less a progress than 
a return — a return from the muffled chambers of Satan’s 
bedlam to the intelligence and industry of the Father’s 
house ? Is not all crime lunacy, and aU weakness idiot- 
ic ? But after all, the important question is, What am 
I, and what are you ? 

“ If I went to school I shouldn’t get any prizes,” said 
Fehcia Dimsdale, standing in her sixteen-years’ beauty, 
with my three prizes in her hh,nd, and the evening sun- 
hght on her white dress. “ I wish I was clever ; I think 
it would please mamma so much, for mamma praises 
you very often.” 

I am not clever— not a bit,” I rephed, “ only I don’t 
hke to be beaten. So I make up my mind to do a thing, 
and I just go and do it.” 

Felicia smiled at that. “ It is very well for you to 
say so, dear,” she answered, “ and yet I can’t help wish- 
ing, that just for once you might understand what it is 
to want to do something, and yet not be able to do it. 
For instance, I always wish to rise early, yet, somehow, 
I never get up when I am called.” 

“ Quite your own fault,” I said ; “ you should not take 
a moment’s thought about it, but jump straight up, and 
it is done.” 


6o 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


Felicia shook her head. “ I know what I should do 
weU enough,” she rephed ; “ the worst of it is I can’t do 
it.” 

Ask God to help you, and then try your hardest.” 
I said. 

“ Is it worth while to ask God to help one to get up 
in the morning ?” she asked, almost pitifully. 

“ Of course it is,” I rephed. “ If we do not ask God’s 
help till we want it for something worthy of it, we shall 
never ask it at all.” 

“ Do you always act up to this ?” she asked, but not 
mockingly. 

“No,” I said, “ but I don’t blame God by saying that 
I can’t. I know it is because I won’t.” 

Miss Dimsdale and I did not have another private 
conversation for a long time. They paid a lengthened 
visit to the seaside that autumn, in consequence of a 
sudden failure in the Squire’s health. Except two or 
three letters, we had no communication until near 
Christmas. And Felicia’s letters were not of that kind 
which keep an absent friend strongly in our view, and 
sometimes report changes even better than spoken words. 
They were sweet, affectionate letters, beginning with 
“ dearest,” and signed “ your loving friend but there 
was nothing in them except that it was a beautiful day, 
and the Squire was much better and had been able to 
take a ride, and mamma sent her kindest regards, and 
hoped that dear Mrs. Garrett was keeping quite safe 
from her troublesome rheumatism. Felicia wrote that 
large rambling hand which would take a quire to express 
a thought, and a ream to tell a story. 

At Christmas the Squire always gave a party to the 


MISS FELICIA. 


6l 


young people of the neighbourhood. None of the coun- 
ty people were asked to fraternise ^uth us, and prove the 
glorious equality of humanity by dancing with us, and 
befoohng us, — and not recognising us next day. The 
very cream of this Clockhouse party were people who only 
“ got in ” to sit by the wall at the county assemblies — 
the curate’s children, and the doctor’s son, and the law- 
yer’s daughters. The rest of us belonged to tenant- 
farmers and tradespeople, and such odds and ends as the 
excise officer, and the professor of music and so forth. 
In short there was nobody there who might not take 
anybody else’s compliments or attentions in aU sincerity, 
and not as a mere voluntary subscription to an Angh- 
cised and Tory version of “ Liberty, Equahty, and Fra- 
ternity.” Any of the guests might have married the 
other — not without heart-burnings — ^for I don’t suppose 
there ever was a marriage that satisfied everbody — but 
without scandal. And I always consider that is the 
grand gusto of any party. No marriage need ever come 
off, but the very possibihty is exciting ! 

Generally speaking, there was nobody but old neigh- 
bours at the Clockhouse party. Most of the ghis knew 
what each other would wear, and helped in making each 
other’s finery, and had occasionally exchanged it. But 
that year there was one stranger — a young man of about 
two-and-twenty. Not handsome, but with a face that 
meant something. Fehcia told me that her father had 
made his acquaintance at the seaside, while the youth 
had been taking hohday from his studies in the Temple. 
His name was Markham Pavitt. He was to be a barris- 
ter. “ Where was his home ? ” I asked— ‘‘ anywhere 
near Mallowe?” He had no home, Felicia answered. 


62 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


She had a pretty, plaintive note in her voice which said 
pathetic things very sweetly. His own people were all 
dead, except one uncle in the north of England. His 
father had been a dissenting minister. He hved in lodg- 
ings in London, and supported himself during his studies 
by writing for the papers. She had seen some of his 
articles, and she should think they were very clever, but 
they were not about subjects that she could understand. 
They were pohtical. Was it not awful that a young 
man scarcely six years older than herself, should be so 
clever ! And then she went off to dance the first dance 
with him, as he was a stranger. 

Ah, those Clockhouse parties were very delightful! 
This morning, as I went through the rooms, I could not 
realize that nearly fifty years have passed since that last 
one. Fifty years I And nearly all who were there have 
gone before me 1 But what seems stranger than all the 
changes is the something that has not changed, the 
something in myself that does not feel a bit older for all 
those fifty years. I don’t feel so excitedly glad or sorry 
nowadays, because my party have gone home before me, 
and taken my personal interest with them, and I am just 
sittmg waitmg in the httle station, till the coach comes 
back for me, and then my story will begin again ! And 
in the meantime, I talk to the people who are waiting 
too, and if I see a cobweb in any comer, I try to knock 
it down. So the time passes pfeasantly enough, and not 
unprofitably. Yes, Markham Pavitt’s first Christmas 
party at the Clockhouse was my last one. My dear 
father died in the following February, and through one 
event and another my fife changed into quite a different 
tune. There was my brother Edward to be started in 


MISS FELICIA. 


63 


the world, and though we could do very little for him 
beyond a dozen shirts and stockings and sis handker- 
chiefs, still the anxiety of the thing is much the same in 
aU these cases. He got his situation through Mr. Dims- 
dale speaking a good word for him to the great city mer- 
chant, I\Ir. Lambert, who had been an old school-fellow 
of his. That was the way with Mr. Dimsdale. He did 
not do good by fits and starts — now and then stuffing 
himself with philanthropy till it brought on a moral in- 
digestion, and then starving it off. He did not know he 
was doing good. He did good as naturally as he ate his 
dinner and never thought about it. If he were alive to 
day, he would never dream of tracing Edward’s affiuence 
to his kind letter of introduction. He was not like those'^ 
people who drop a seed of kindness — after holding it so 
long in their hot, reluctant hands that half its vitality is 
gone — and then keep routing up its soil to see if it is 
sprouting ; and when it is they must have the first 
flower, because they planted it, and the last one for the 
same reason, until the poor shrub is ready to cry out, “ I 
had as well never been planted at aU, as not to have a 
single blossom for myself! He was not Hke Miss Vix, 
who once thought she had a right to interfere in a girl’s 
love affairs because she had given her a cast-off gown to 
go to service in. I don’t say that the recipient of a 
favour should measure their gratitude by its magnitude. 
Far from it. Besides, a cup of cold water given when^ 
we are faint is better than Burgundy when we are dead. 
And the measure of gratitude is the plummet of the 
heart that renders iO But directly gratitude is demand- 
ed as a debt, the creditor should be willing to receive 
payments — ^by instalments or otherwise ; and when the 


64 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


account is clear the debtor should have a right to de- 
mand a receipt. For if it is all resolved into a mere busi- 
ness-like matter of giving and taking, let it be done in a 
business-hke way. If it is a matter above business, or 
if it is a stray bit of the business of that country where 
we shall pay our way with another currency than gold and 
silver, then rest assured that it is all entered in the 
ledgers up there, and we need not to trouble ourselves 
with any private day-book of our own. 

The Squire himself gave but one party after my last 
one. From all I heard of that evening, it was not what 
some of the former ones had been. Sir. Dimsdale’s 
health was fast failing. He could not stand up to dance, 
and he could not offer his arm to take anybody to supper, 
because he could not walk without a stick. The night 
of changes had begun, that grey twilight was just steal- 
ing on when we look at each other as if to see whether 
anybody notices anything, though we only say that the 
sun wiU be out again presently, and our game wdl be as 
merry as ever ! 

I heard that Fehcia seemed very nervous about her 
father, as if she did not even care to dance while he sat 
stiU in pain and weakness. But still she danced twice 
with Markham Pavitt, who was reported, rather mean- 
ingly, to be “ in high favour with the Squire.” Mrs. 
Dimsdale was not at all alarmed about her husband ; 
and it was observed that she was a sensible woman, who 
did not think that people had nothing to do but to die 
the moment they were not quite so strong as they had 
once been. The music, I was told, was not as good as 
usual, and in his supper-time speech the Squire had 
made a pretty allusion to the fact that a certain youth 


MISS FELICIA. 


65 


wlio for several years had made sweet melody on the 
Clockhouse piano, had taken his talents' to London. “ It 
will be a proud day for us,” said the dear old gentleman, 
“when people begin to tell that the great musician, 
Eichard Carewe, was bom at MaUowe. And by the 
time my Felicia there is an old lady, perhaps our old in- 
strument will be quite a valuable heirloom, just because 
he once played upon it.” The good old Squire ! That 
was so like him ! But Felicia did not live to be an old 
lady, and Eichard Carewe died a beggar’s death before 
that year was out, and the housekeeper teUs me the piano 
is to be given to a small school in the neighbourhood, 
where, for a trifling consideration, the children of foohsh 
parents are taught a smattering of everythiug useless. 
This morning I ran my fingers softly up its notes. ^It is 
all out of tune, but it has a sound — like the echo of the 
song that used to be in my heart. J I am not sentimental 
— oh no. That was never one of the accusations laid at 
my door. But still I would have bought that old piano 
if it had been for sale. And I would not give much 
for your youth, if you would not make a fool of your- 
self for any relic that savoured of it. ^ 

The Squire was seen in the vfllage but very seldom 
after that party. And then he was in a Bath chair, with 
his wife or daughter walking by his side. His mind 
broke up. • Not that he doted or drivelled. He felt the 
change himself. ^‘Fm being made over again. Miss 
Euth,” he used to say. “ I’ve lived to be an old man, but 
I’m to go into heaven as a poor little child after all. No, 
my dear, I don’t want that learned book now ” (it was 
some pohtical work, whose publication both him and my 
own dear father had anxiously expected). “ There won’t 


66 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


be Wbigs or Tories where I’m going, my dear. Let me 
see some of the children’s books ; I’m sure you keep 
some nice ones that you recommend to the little people. 
Give me whatever is the general favourite. There is a 
deal more in these children’s books than middle-aged 
people can see. Something about an angel in this one, 
isn ’t there, my dear ? That will do. My remembrances 
to your mother, Miss Euth, and I’m glad to hear her boy 
in London is always doing well. Good-bye.” 

That was the last time I saw him. He died very 
gently, and hved two or three days longer than the 
doctors expected. After he had almost ceased to speak, 
he suddenly asked for Markham Pavitt, in consequence 
of which Mrs. Dimsdale sent for the young man, who 
promptly travelled from London to his old friend’s bed- 
side. From the reports I heard, I used to picture the 
scene in the old crimson bedchamber — the sick man, 
smihng sometimes, as if the angels were akeady talking 
to him, smiling, other times, at the little white-lipped 
daughter, sitting holding his hand in hers — the young 
man, in his physical and intellectual vigour, awed and 
humbled as Death awes and humbles youth and health 
— and Mrs. Dimsdale, in her worst morning dresses, 
with her possets and her pills, and the rouge very badly 
put on her sharp, seamy face. And day after day, those 
four were drawn together, and the doctors came and 
went, and nobody but Markham knew when Fehcia 
stepped behind the curtains to let the tears fall down. 
And nobody but those tw’O were in the room when the 
Squire went away. They thought he was asleep, and 
could not teU the time of his departure within half-an- 
hour. Perhaps he scarcely knew himself. He had 


MISS FELICIA. 


67 


brought such an aroma of peace and love about him, 
that one may fancy he could not discern the change to 
a heavenly atmosphere as sharply as some of us might. 

He had left instructions that his funeral and monu- 
mental tablet should be as plain as possible, and poor 
Mrs. Dimsdale’s pecuhar style of mourning could find 
no vent save in an extraordinary quantity of crape. 
The mother and daughter went to some watering-place 
immediately after the funeral, as it was said, for the 
benefit of Fehcia’s health. Of course, the Clockhouse 
and all the estate was hers now, free from all charges 
except a very handsome allowance to the widow. 

Fehcia had never showed any interest in village affairs 
up to that time — not even to the extent of accompany- 
ing her mother to the ladies’ sewing parties, and such 
other charitable meetings, where all the evils of the Fall 
are proposed to be redressed by gallons of soup made 
on economical principles, and by flannel bought at a loss 
to the di’aper, and made into petticoats by amateurs, 
lest the honest hire of needlewomen should deduct a 
trifle from the alms to be bestowed on paupers. 

But soon after the Squire’s death, whether from a 
sense of her responsibility as a landed proprietor, or 
from a dutiful wish to follow out her father’s wishes, or 
from some other cause. Miss Dimsdale set about 
earnestly promoting certain reforms in the neighbour- 
hood of the Clockhouse, among which I remember 
a row of labourers’ cottages, and a provident fund. 
Her personal supervision would have been of httle 
use, even could she have given it, and the steward 
was a stiff feudalist, who could not see “why folks 
should not go on hving in the same style as their fore- 


68 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


fathers. Hated to hear talk of the requirements of 
health and decency. Believed there were more people 
hved to a hundred years in the old times than nov/. 
And decency did not mean the same thing with one set 
of people as with another. Swells might go on talking 
about that stuff and nonsense till they’d build httle 
dressing-rooms in their ploughmen’s cottages.” So, 
somehow, the charge of Felicia’s schemes got into Mark- 
ham Pavitt’s hands, and whenever the young barrister 
could spare a few days from London, he spent them in 
Mallowe. 

Now, I made believe I was brave enough about carry- 
ing on my father’s business and keeping u.p the old 
home for my mother and myself, but I had some private 
qualms at times. I know now that private qualms are 
hopeful symptoms of success. They make one scorn no 
honest means to keep on the safe side of fortune. So 
whenever we could, we let our httle drawing-room and 
the best bed-chamber, and contented ourselves with the 
attics and the parlour behind the shop. And Mr. Pavitt 
made his home in our lodgings off and on, during the 
whole period of the Dimsdales’ absence, which was fully 
two years ; since after them stay by the sea they wintered 
in Paris, and spent the next season wandering about the 
German baths. Mrs. Dimsdale had endured more than 
twenty years of meals at her own table, and nights in 
her own bed, and service from her own domestics, and 
so doubtless enjoyed with greater gnisto the tables-d’hdte, 
and hii-ed chambers, and ail the other discomforts, 
which had a flavour of her old Bohemian days, without 
their sting of neglect and need. 

Everybody in Mallowe soon learned a great respect for 


MISS FELICIA. 


69 


i^Iarkham Pavitt. Not that liis character had very much 
of the commoner elements of popularity. He was too 
sensible and self-reliant. There was nothing of the beau 
in his politeness to women ; the elder ones might have 
been his aunts, and the younger ones his sisters, his 
manner towards them was so free from all suspicion of 
flirtation. Not that I set it down as a virtue when a 
young man appears to feel no pleasing titillation in 
female society, nor to have any sly preference for a httle 
talk with a sprightly woman, rather than a most sensible 
conversation with a friend in whiskers. Quite the reverse, 
unless there is a reason for it. <^od meant the very 
dearest friendship of this life to be between man and 
woman.^ And until we have felt the real thmg we often 
feel a vague enjoyment in a sort of make-beheve. But I 
thought there was a reason for Markham Pavitt’s frank 
reserve and happy indifference. Those little delicate 
foreign letters that came so often ! Do what he might, 
he could not help showing some restlessness when a post 
passed without one ; and when one came, I think we 
might have given him raw pork for dinner that day, and 
he would never have noticed it, nor been any the worse I 
And as the foreign letters were at all pleasing to him, it 
was no wonder that they were very pleasing, for they 
came often. Well ! pleasure is not so cheap in this 
world, that we need call it dear at postage-rates, even if 
our correspondent will hve abroad, and does write a 
scrambling hand hke Felicia’s, and has not very much to 
say, except ‘‘ dearest ” and “ Yours most affectionately.” 
Not that I say that is how she began and ended her 
letters to Markham Pavitt. Neither do I say it is how 
she did not. 


70 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


And so early spring came round, the second early 
spring since the Squire died. And suddenly the Clock- 
house windows w^ere thrown open, and there was a grand 
airing of rooms and bedding. The ladies were coming 
back. Markham Pavitt was staying at our house at the 
time, but he had not received a foreign letter for some 
weeks, and he had the announcement, like the rest of us, 
from the old steward. 

So a week or two went by, and then an epistle came 
for our lodger. Its postmark was Brighton. I took it 
to him myself at breakfast-time, but, of course, he did 
not open it until I went away. And when he met me on 
the stairs, half-an-hour after, he told me that we might 
expect them at the Clockhouse by the end of March. 
Were they quite well ? Oh yes, thank you, or at least 
he supposed so, they did not say they were not. Then 
I knew that something was wrong. And I had great 
sympathy with the young man when I heard him pacing 
up and down our drawing-room that evening, though I 
confess I also had some feeling for the carpet, which was 
of best Brussels, and I did not quite see where another 
was to come from when it was worn out. Do you know, I 
think that happy married people should all subscribe to 
a general fund, to be apphed in repairing the damages 
done by unhappy lovers ? 

Mr. Pavitt went up to the Clockhouse to meet the 
ladies on their return, but he was not away more than 
an hour, nor did he go back again in the evening. He 
ate one slice of bread-and-butter for his tea that day, 
and he did not have the candles lighted, but lay on the 
sofa in the dark, and actually let the fire go out. He 
had such a fearful headache, he said, that the heat and 


MISS FELICIA. 


n 


light seemed to drive him into a fever. The servant- 
girl brought us down this report, and my mother took 
up his supper herself, with an innocent desire to 
offer advice and condolence to the sohtary sufferer. 
“ Well, I’ll not trouble him again,” she said when she 
came back, “ I never saw anybody with such a cantan- 
kerous way of taking a Christian kindness. ‘ Just leave 
me to myself ! ’ indeed ! He’ll not have occasion to say 
that to me twice, nor to any one else either, I suspect, 
for it’s exactly what the world is always over-inclined to 
do!” 

The next day was Sunday. Such a wet, wet Sunday 1 
I remember I stood at our window for nearly a quarter 
of an hour before I could raise my courage to starting- 
point. 3^Ir. Pavitt went off in good time, without any 
hesitation. ‘‘If he was so bad last night,” said my 
mother, “ I should think he might have been thankful he 
was not obliged to go out, and have settled himself at 
home, and read his Bible.” 

I expected to see the Clockhouse pew empty. For in 
the Squire’s time, the horses were never brought out on 
Sunday, and whoever did not care to face bad weather 
remained at home. But as I approached the church, I 
saw a carriage drive away, and I passed the gate just in 
time to see a light figure flutter up the sloppy path before 
me. It was Miss Fehcia. 

She had the pew to herself, for Mr. Pavitt, who had 
used it during the absence of the family, had now retired 
to a side-seat. From time to time I stole a glance at 
Miss Fehcia. Her face had once had a pathetic minghng 
of both her parents. The likeness to the mother pre- 
dominated now, only leaving a peculiar softness of hp. 


72 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


wliicli had certainly never belonged to Mrs. Dimsdale. 
She had been a simple well-bred girl when she left the 
Clockhouse. She was a fine lady now, with a constant 
mental oscillation between raptures and nonchalance. 
She had left off her mourning, and her dress had ad- 
vanced with herself. There was a woman's fife put into 
its finical elaboration, whose highest aim could be the dis- 
content and destruction of aU the female parishioners. 
And yet, in sermon-time, when she leaned her head in 
the pew-comer, the self-consciousness that she had 
learned under the eyes of French counts and German 
barons died away, and she looked very like the old 
Felicia Dimsdale. 

Service over, she rose, and gave one quick, sharp look 
towards Markham Pavitt. It said, plamly enough for 
me, let alone for him, “ You may speak to me in the 
porch." And accordingly, as I came slowly down the 
gallery-stairs, I saw them meet. Ah, he was not all 
composure, always, that young hamster! How she 
looked up at him ! And beautiful eyes she had. They 
walked down the sloppy path together, he through the 
puddles, at the side, she daiutily picking her way from 
one stone to another, through the middle. Her carriage 
was waiting at the end, and she stepped in, and shook 
hands with him out of it, and yet kept him a moment 
longer to say something further, in such a pretty eager 
way, as if she would rather the moment were an hour. 

Next morning, the Clockhouse steward came to our 
shop to buy somethiog. My mother happened to serve 
him, and as usual they had a httle gossip. I chanced to 
enter the shop in time to hear : 

“Yes, kirs. Garrett, I suppose it will be a match. He 


MISS FELICIA. 


73 


was about with them a great deal in Germany, and he 
travelled all the way home with them. And he’s not the 
sort of man to be bothered about ladies’ luggage for 
nothing. He’s staying at the Clockhouse now — put into 
the best spare chamber, which was never opened except 
for married couples ; and for the matter of that, I dare- 
say he’d have preferred the common bachelor visitor’s 
bed-room, where he might enjoy a pipe without fear of 
poisoning the house. But when ladies want to do a 
body honor, they are sure to do it in their own way, and 
one must take the wiU for the deed. Well, he’s not what 
you or I would call a steady young man, Mrs. Garrett ; but 
these gentry, you know, are above those common sort of 
virtues. He is very well, — bets a little too much perhaps. 
But it is a fine estate, take it for aU in aU, and if ]\Irs. 
Dimsdale makes the match, the Squire himself could not 
have done better for his daughter.” 

“ What is all that about ? ” I inquired as soon as the 
old man was gone. 

“ ]VIr. George Shirley, of Shirley HaU,” said my mother ; 
“ he is staying at the Clockhouse, and they say he is court- 
ing Miss Felicia. Well, there have been queer things 
said of him — and not so long ago either. But perhaps 
they were not half true.” 

I had seen Mr. George Shirley, whose father’s early 
death had made him already the proprietor of a large 
estate about twenty miles from MaUowe. He was a six- 
foot high young man, a king at cricket, the rival of the 
best jockeys of the county, and one of those with an 
inclination to “follow strong drink,” only kept in some 
check by his love for athletic sports. The doubtful stories 
to which my mother alluded, were darker shades in his 
4 


74 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


character, but they were all in that melancholy keeping 
which made you feel that if they were not the truth, 
probably the truth was very hke them. And this was 
the rival of sober, cleanly, studious Markham Pavitt, for 
whom, by the way, there came a note from the Clock- 
house that very evening. And next morning he paid the 
Dimsdales a brief visit previous to his return to Lon- 
don. 

At the close of that week. Miss Dimsdale came to our 
shop. She sat down on the chair her father had always 
used, and “ vowed it was delightful to see the dear old 
place once more.” She had come to ask a great, great 
favor. Mamma had just started off with Mr. George 
Shirley on a visit to his mother at Shirley HaU. And 
while they would all be enjoying themselves at their 
whist, and so forth (not that she envied them — it would 
be dreadfully tame after "Wiesbaden — ^but nevertheless it 
was their pleasure), she was to be left aU alone at the Clock- 
house, as dull — as dull — as duU as what is the dullest 
thing that is ? — a canary, with an old maid’s black silk 
apron over its cage ! Well, if she could not be orna- 
mental to society, it was a very good oppoiiunity to be 
useful And so she was going to put the Clockhouse 
library in order. Mr. Pavitt had wanted the loan of a 
book the other day, and she had not been able to find it, 
everything was in such horrible confusion. But the 
worst of it was, you could not always tell what books 
were from their titles, and if she was left to herseK and 
the servants, she was sure they would mix up the di- 
vinity and the science. Would I come and help her"? 
She would not work me too hard, I could trust her for 
that, couldn’t I ? And then we would have luncheon 


MISS FELICIA. 75 

together in her own little room, and it would be hke 
old times, and so nice ! 

Of course I went. But it was not hke old times. We 
can no more have back old times by gathering the same 
people in the same place, than we could have back a 
dead friend by seating his skeleton in his accustomed 
chair. It was one thing to go to the Clockhouse when I 
was my father’s petted child, in a white muslin as good 
as Miss Fehcia’s own, with no appreciable difference be- 
tween her fine lace and my neat tuckers. And quite 
another thing now I was a self-dependent woman, with 
gnawing forecastings about rent and taxes, and a little 
over-carefulness about my best dress that must last at 
least another season. Do you say how small these things 
are ! But is not everything small ? And the people 
who think anything too small to take into consideration, 
are not they often the smallest of all ? 

We borrowed hoUand aprons from the housekeeper, 
and set about our task. I thought we were to be 
thoroughly in earnest, but I soon found that Miss FeHcia 
was not, and that the library arrangement was a mere 
excuse to justify her in mvitiug such an inferior. Now 
that was a feeling that w’ould never have come between 
the Squire and my father. They knew more politics than 
I did, but they kept them outside their hearts, and only 
discussed them as Adam and Eve may have discussed 
the tree of knowledge of good and evil before they ate 
of it. I never can do that. Whenever I catch a theory, 
I always yoke it to the nearest fact, and -watch how they 
draw together. But then there is a deal in the harnes- 
sing. And in those days I had not had much practice. 
Else I should have accepted the position with a sly en- 


76 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


joyment in the triumph of human nature over its hveries. 
As it was, I was fool enough to take umbrage, and to 
work as persistently as if it were an honest necessity that 
I should give real value for the wine and pheasant that 
we had for lunch. 

“We’ll not go back to the library just yet,” said Miss 
Felicia, as the footman removed our plates. “ I’m tired. 
And I shall be so glad of a talk. I suppose you wiQ not 
confess that weakness. You would not leave your work 
till you died at it. But then you are a superior woman. 
I mean it. Dear me, but how important you must feel ! 
It must be very nice to have something to do in the 
world. I wish I had.” 

“ W eU, Miss Felicia,” I said, “ the mistress of the Clock- 
house fills a far more important place than Kuth Garrett 
of Mallowe Library.” 

“ I don’t think I have enough in me to fill any place,” 
she answered, listlessly, and I was struck by the curious, 
faded look that came over her face at times. 

“ I thought you meant to be quite a Lady Bountiful,” 
I remarked ; I am sure the cottages and the club ” 

“ Their merit all lies with Markham Pavitt,” she re- 
plied, brightening. “He suggested them, and he has 
carried them out.” 

“ Your money has enabled him to do so,” I said. 

“ I daresay you miss Markham,” she observed. “ I 
was always so glad to know he was with you. I felt 
sure he would be comfortable. Isn’t he nice ? And so 
good and wise ! Well, I am glad to be told how to do 
good,” she went on. “I should like to make a httle 
happiness for somebody. Miss Buth, you can’t imagine 
how miserable I feel sometimes. I don’t know why, but 


MISS FELICIA. 


77 


nevertheless the misery is dreadfully real I can put it 
off pretty well when I am going to balls and parties, but 
when I am left to hve quietly, like you hve always, my 
dear, then I’m wretched ! I don’t expect you to under- 
stand it in yourself, but if you can only tell me what you 
think causes it, or how I might cure it. For you are so 
sensible. Papa always said so.” 

“ Miss Fehcia,” I said, “ the Hebrew kings used to 
consult the prophets, bub very often they wanted an echo 
more than an oracle.” 

“ You mean that you intend to bring some dreadful 
accusation against me,” she observed, with a forced 
laugh, and a heightened color. 

“ I am not an oracle,” I answered, “ and I may think 
rightly or wrongly. But, Miss Fehcia, whilst anybody 
plays a false part, they must not expect to be happy. 
Find out what is right, and then do it.” 

“ It is not so easy,” she said, shaking her head. 

“ Then find out what you mean to do, and do that,” 
I replied, “ and then either the devils or the angels will 
leave off troubling you.” 

‘‘ I think you have touched the truth of my trouble,” 
she said, “but I’m afraid that won’t help me. Miss 
Ruth, dear, tell me what you have heard. I’m sure 
you’ve heard something.” 

“ That you are likely to marry Mr. Shirley,” I rephed. 

“Well ? ” she said, in a dry hard tone. 

“And I believe you have thought very differently 
yourself, and have helped somebody else to think very 
differently too.” 

“ I know I have,” she answered, starting up, and seiz- 
ing my hand. “ But I could not help it. I did not 


78 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


mean any harm. I meant everything at the time. I did 
not know things would become so difficult. I had not 
thought it over. We were thrown together, Markham 
and Ij^in my time of sorrow. You can’t wonder that I 
liked him, dear ? Though if I’d had a grain of mamma’s 
sense, I should have understood how far such liking 
should go. But I am never practical ; she always says 
so. ‘A thorough dreaming Dimsdale’ she calls me.” 

“ Dreaming or not, the Dimsdales have kept honor and 
prosperity for a long time,” I said, with an indig^ 
nant recollection of the stories I had heard of the 
Sherletts. 

“ She says I’d do very well in poetry, but not in the 
sohd world, don’t you see ? ” explained Felicia. 

“ I don’t believe in any poetry but what has the solid 
world for its foundation,” I said ; “ so if you jump off that, 
where can you alight but in chaos ? ” 

“ I cannot . think why things are as they are,” said 
Felicia, restlessly. “ I liked Markham Pavitt. He was 
the man who could have made something of me if any- 
body could. And yet it is the ^vill of God that I should 
marry somebody else.” 

“ The will of God !” I echoed aghast. “ How do you 
know ?” 

“ Because I know it will end in that, and what is to 
be must be,” she rephed, rather wide of the mark. 

“ Then if you saw me trying to cut my throat, you 
would not do what you could to hinder me ?” I asked. 

“ If it was ordained that you were to cut your throat, 
I should not be able to stop you,” she said. 

“But nobody knows what is ordained,” I returned. 
“We need not flatter ourselves that we are in God’s 


MISS FELICIA. 79 

secrets. We do not know what is his will, except that 
it cannot be his will that we should do wrong.’' 

“But then what is wrong?” she asked. “Mamma 
says that I owe a great deal to my station in life. That 
I should think of the enlargement of my estate and the 
promotion of my family. Only poor Markham is so 
good, and always made me feel as if I might be some- 
thing after all !” 

“ And you think the will of God is much more hkely 
to be interested in the adding of acre to acre than in the 
enlargement of your soul,” I said. 

“ You seem to imagine my sympathies are aU enlisted 
against poor Markham,” she pouted. “ If you only knew 
what it is to sit hoim after hour with George. Shuley, 
trjdng to make beheve that I understand all about his 
‘ runs ’ and his ‘ wickets,’ and all the other hateful cant 
of his abominable cricket, and then, for a change, play 
his favourite waltzes and polkas, which is all the music 
he cares about. I teU you the truth. Miss Garrett. I 
am often ready to drop through the floor with sheer 
weariness and disgust. He has required to write to me 
but two notes since oiir acquaintance, and if you only 
saw them! I’m certain that he stopped short in half 
the words to consult the dictionary how to finish them, 
and ” 

“ Stop, jMiss Fehcia,” I interrupted, “ you teU me he 
is to be your husband — ^your lord and master. Say 
nothing now that you will regret then.” 

Her face flushed, but she defended herself. “ I don’t 
want to marry him,” she said, “ but I know I shall do it. 
Mamma says that it is right, and how am I to know that 
it is not ? It seems to me that right is only a compara- 


8o 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


tive thing. Mamma holds one right, you hold another, 
perhaps I hold a third. How do you define right, Miss 
Garrett?” 

“ It is the effort to get our lives into tune in spite of 
the discord that Satan has set therein,” I rephed. “ How 
far we shall succeed is in God’s hands, but the effort 
He leaves in ours. Shall we throw it back at Him as 
naughty children throw their work at their teacher, 
though aU. that they are bidden is ‘ to try and do their 
best T ” 

“ But he knows beforehand what we shall do,” she re- 
turned. “And it seems to me that I should not do as 
I do unless it was intended for some wise purpose. Am 
I to question the power that has decided that I am to 
be as I am ?” 

“ Do you mean to say that whatever any of us do, 
must be right if we do it ?” I asked. “As for the mys- 
teries of God’s foreknowledge and man’s free-will, need 
we, who cannot understand each other, marvel that we 
do not comprehend the Most High ? Dear Miss Fehcia, 
are you not silencing your conscience by your imagina- 
tions ? Does not a voice within you give a very plain 
rule about your duty, so plain that you are ready to turn 
from it like Naaman from Elisha’s prescription of the 
Jordan waters ?” 

“ Mamma says it is my distinct duty to marry George 
Shirley, and it occurs to me that this may be my ap- 
pointed cross,” she answered. 

“Don’t talk nonsense about your cross,” I replied, 
almost angrily, driven out of patience by her lackadai- 
sical manner. “ Don’t fear lest you are so much stronger 
than God that you will be able to get rid of any cross 


MISS FELICIA. 


8l 


that He means you to carry. You are only caiTying this 
foolish cross of your own making, because you fear the 
hard words and thoughts that would surround you if 
you threw it dowm. They would be God’s cross, Miss 
Fehcia.” 

She was silent for a moment, and, I foolishly hoped, 
convinced. But she looked up and laughed, You are 
a dear, good, earnest creatiu-e !” she said. “ But of 
com’se we each think ourselves right, and I suppose we 
shall each fit into the place which is meant for us. Now, 
don’t look terribly shocked, there’s a darling ! God means 
you to marry some good, hard-working doctor or minis- 
ter.” (That was aU she knew about that.) “And a fa- 
mous wife you will make him. I offer him my congratu- 
lations beforehand ! As for poor Markham, he deserves 
somebody better than I am. Poor Markham ! You 
don’t think it will hurt him so very much, do you ? You 
wouldn’t beheve how much I think about him. It even 
makes me cry sometimes !” 

“ Yes, the same kind of tears you give to a novel or a 
song where you enjoy the touching part the most,” I said. 
“ You would blame a washerwoman who stimulated her 
weariness with a little gin. And yet you are playmg 
with two men’s lives just to put a little excitement into 
your own.” I spoke sternly. It was no matter then 
that she was Miss Pehcia, and I was only Kuth Garrett. 
She had appealed to me as a friend, and when she had 
asked for truth, it was not for me to give her smooth 
hes instead. 

We went back into the hbrary, and talked no more of 
anything but the books. Before I went away she gave 
me a lace collar. And she looked into my face. And 

4 * 


82 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


I looked back into bers. Her eyes were so like her 
father’s ! And then she kissed me ; and I left the Clock- 
house, and have never entered it again until to-day. 

Only three months later she was married to George 
Shirley. Such a marriage as had not been in Mallowe 
for fully a hundred years. There were triumphal arches 
put up, and a whole ox was roasted on the green to feast 
the tenantry, and the school children stood all of a row 
in new bibs and tuckers, strewing costly flowers down 
the bridal path. All I know was hearsay, for I did not 
go to see the ceremony. That was my poor httle pro- 
test. My mother said I punished myself, and did not 
hurt anybody else. But it always seems to me that 
without members there can’t be mobs, and that if each 
member set a proper value on himself many a great mob 
would be less. My mother went, and she said it was 
quite a beautiful scene in the chancel, the bride was so 
lovely, and the dresses so graceful, and all in the bright 
June sunlight. Most auspicious ! Ah, weU, the hap- 
piest couple I ever heard of were married in a thunder- 
storm, with the sexton to give away the bride, and a 
half-bhnd pew-opener to hold her glove while the ring 
was put on, and no triumphal arch to pass under except 
the door of the httle home they had got together during 
three happy courting years, where they had a famous 
tete-a-tete wedding breakfast of ham and eggs, before their 
honeymoon of four hours’ duration among the stuffed 
Hons in the British Museum. Does it not show the Mil- 
gar turn of my mind to remember the existence of such 
common people in the middle of narrating an alliance 
that actually had a paragraph to itself in the county 
newspaper ? 


MISS FELICIA. 


83 


One of the school children happened to come to my 
shop on the wedding evening. She still wore her white 
bib and tucker. Had she enjoyed herself 1 I asked. Yes. 
Did she like the bridegroom ? No, she didn’t. He was 
a nasty man. He trod straight upon a white rose that 
she threw out of her basket. She didn’t think he could 
not help it. He seemed to put his foot on it on purpose. 
He was a nasty man I Poor girl ! she lived to outhve 
her childish wisdom, and to fall like the white rose under 
the cruel tread of George Shirley, and then to sink out 
of sight in the reeking mire of some great town. Her 
father held George Shirley by the arm in the market- 
place while he told him some plain truths, for which' 
“assault” he got a month’s imprisonment with hard 
labour. Mrs. George Shirley must have read all about 
it in the same paper that had used such fine phrases at 
her wedding. She sent the man’s wife a little money 
during his captivity. Poor Fehcia ! 

I saw Markham Pavitt but thrice after Miss Dims- 
dale’s marriage. The next summer he came to Mallowe 
about some business, and put up at his old quarters. 
No more fear of his wearing out my carpet. He sat 
and read his law-books as if there was not a woman in 
the w^orld. / Disappointments don’t change us. They 
never ruin people who have not ruin in them nature. 
Only they are shafts sent to the very bottom of our 
souls, and whatever is there, whether gold or only cop- 
per, they bring it to the surface. But God help the girl’s 
conscience who brings upon any man’s face the look that 
was on Markham Payitt’s ! 

The Shirleys never settled at Shirley Hall or the Clock- 
house, but spent nearly aU their time bet'ween London, 


84 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


Bath, and the German gaming-places. Mrs. Dimsdale 
went with them at first. But she very soon came back 
to the Clockhouse, and it was reported that she did not 
say very sweet things of her son-in-law. She was para- 
lyzed for years before she died. Mrs. Shirley occasion- 
ally came and stayed with her for a few days, and she 
used to drop into my shop, and gabble away about the 
novels she borrowed, two or three at a time.f She looked 
like something that you’ve crumpled up in mistake, and 
then smoothed out again as well as you canj Perhaps 
that was through her dress. For, as soon as she was 
too old for finery, she grew a dreadful scarecrow. They 
had but one son, and George Shkley quarrelled with 
him for no better reason than because he was like him- 
self. As soon as he came of age the hopeful young gen- 
tleman raised money on a post-obit. We he^d of fear- 
ful scenes between the reprobate son and equally repro- 
bate father, fastened to his easy chair, the bloated victim 
of vices which he had not left, but which had left him. 
George Shirley died before his wife, who spent her last 
days in lodgiugs at Tunbridge Wells, hving long enough 
to know that her death would the sooner permit her 
son’s creditors — horse-traiuers and book-makers — to 
pounce upon the fair fields and stately homestead of the 
Dimsdales. When she died there was nobody with her 
but a maid-servant, who was afterwards prosecuted for 
taking a diamond-ring from the finger of the corpse. 

I saw Markham Pavitt once more — when he was Judge 
at Hopleigh Assizes. He had married the daughter of 
a law lord, and his wife was with him, a pleasant, portly 
lady, in a black-velvet mantle edged with sable. I was 
told she always went with him on circuit, they were such 


MISS FELICIA. 


85 


an affectionate couple. Judge Pavitt died about five years 
ago, leaving a very good name behind him, as an honest 
lawyer, a worthy man, and a humble Christian. His 
widow stiU lives. Their elder daughter is married to a 
dean, and the younger to a baronet, and their only son 
is a member of Parhament, and he it is who has just 
bought the Clockhouse and its estate from the assignees 
of the younger George Shirley. 

And all that remains of Hewett Dimsdale’s daughter 
is one badly-cut line at the bottom of George Shirley’s 
tablet in Shirley Church. 

“Also his wife Fehcia.” 

When I hear people wonder how a God of love can 
leave any to perish, I often think that there will be no- 
body in hell but those who will go there in defiance of 
Him. We see people who wiU not take one step, or 
bear one prick to gain an earthly bliss that stands be- 
fore their eyes. And where “ strait is the gate, and nar- 
■ row is the way ” to the bhss they cannot see, is it likely 
they wfil take the trouble to press thereunto ? Need the 
admirers of free-will blame God for not forcing them into 
his glory against their will ? Shall we blame Him for 
their perdition — Him, whose great heart of mercy was 
lonely in heaven for thirty-three years, while He lent his 
Son to bear the burden and learn the secrets of our 
shameful mortality ? 

“ What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole 
world, and lose his own soul ?” What, indeed ? And 
yet the devil generally cheats him out of even that bad 
bargain ! 

Alas, Felicia ! 


III. 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 

UR clergyman and my sister Ruth once had a dis- 



W cussion. (They have discussions pretty often.) 
This one originated in a cpnversation between him and 
me about some new Metropolitan Charitable Institution 
that Mr. Marten was advocating as if it were such a safe 
and sole panacea for all misery, that Ruth said after- 
wards that she could not help wondering how the world 
had existed so long without it, and if he could make out 
that the good Samaritan was connected with his Asso- 
ciation, and that Dorcas employed its agency to ascertain 
the character of the widows she clothed, — though she 
was quite ready to admit it might be very useful, and • 
get something out of those people who can’t do good in 
a natural way. But she kept silence till Mr. Marten 
said : 

“There is httle danger of hot-headed zeal and 
ignorant excitement among a committee all chosen from 
a Church which admits none to its priesthood without 
an University training. • I often think that it would be 
much better if nobody undertook any ministerial work 
without similar careful and refining preparation.” 

“ IMr. Marten, what is refinement ? ” asked Ruth. 

“ Refinement is the approach to perfection,” he an- 
swered, quite glibly. 

“ And when is an object nearest to perfection — when 


( 86 ) 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 


87 


it is fit for its purpose, or when it is too delicate for any 
use but one for wbich it wiU never be used? ” she went 
on. “ If the latter, is its attainment desirable ? Shall 
we have all our hnen refined into lace and our food into 
confectionery ? ” 

Mr. Marten took no notice of the questions, but said. 

Nobody can deny that the simplest work is done best 
by good tools in skilful hands.” 

“That is what I always maintain,” Kuth assented, 
most cordially, “but yet I don’t think you would like 
all our crossings to remain dirty till we got senior 
wranglers with carpet brooms to sweep them. And then 
the senior wrangler would die of neuralgia from the wet 
feet that are almost an enjoyment to Irish Dick with his 
shaving-bound besom. And we should kill off our senior 
wranglers faster then we could cultivate them, and yet 
the crossings would keep on getting dirty ! ” 

“ Then you think that anybody is fit for the highest 
work of God’s service,” said the young gentleman rather 
sarcastically. 

“ No, I don’t,” answered Euth, “ only the anybodys who 
have passed a creditable examination in that costly school 
where God is the chief teacher and life is the only lesson.” 

“ I hope you don’t forget that the poor — especially the 
men — are always supposed to prefer a ‘ real clergyman ’ 
to any mere Scripture-reader or City missionary,” he 
observed. 

“ Of course they do,” she said ; “ the mystery of 
distance is about you, and when you talk nonsense, it 
shoots harmless over their heads, but towards the latter, 
as their equals, they feel pretty much as gentlemen of 
your class feel towards you.” 


88 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


“ And how is that, if I may presume t6 inquire ? ” he 
asked. 

“ If I may presume to say,” Ruth returned, “ it is, 
that your observations of the world and your comments 
upon it, would be worth a great deal more if you dropped 
them for a while, and put your heads and hands to two 
or three good chores of honest work.” 

“If we sow unto you spiritual things, is it such a 
great thing if we reap your carnal things ? ” asked Mr. 
Marten, mildly, feeling safe with St. Paul. 

“ No, indeed,” replied Ruth ; “ but that brings for- 
ward another question. Do you sow unto us spiritual 
things? or do you only take^it for granted? Remember 
that the Apostles were all practical men, who had been 
through the common ways of life before they began to 
teach others how to play their parts therein. It seems 
to me that we might as well expect flowers in summer 
without planting them in spring, as look for rational, 
practical advice, or sensible consolation from men who 
have never personally entered into the interests and 
struggles of ordinary humanity. Strange inconsistency, 
to require wisdom of those who are denied experience. 
We do get it sometimes, but, like a girl who keeps her 
good sense all through a boarding-school education, it is 
in spite of circumstances instead of assisted by them. 
It seems to me that it might be a step in the right direc- 
tion if all our ministers of every denomination were re- 
quired to spend the first five or ten years of their career 
in some art, trade, or profession, according to their 
station in life.” 

“ Then you ignore the value of an University educa- 
tion,” he said. 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 


89 


“No, I don’t,” she answered, “there are certain styles 
of thought and life with which you couldn’t very well 
sympathise without an University education ; but I say 
that when you make it a sine qua non with every minister, 
you ignore other styles of hfe and thought, to feel sym- 
pathy with which, such a training, with all its belongmgs, 
is a hindrance rather than a help.” 

“ But, Kuth, what a loss of time your plan would in- 
volve ! ” I ventured to observe. 

“ Do you infer that Christ lost his time when lie was in 
the caipenter’s shop ? ” I asked. “ That is a part of his 
life on which I wish our teachers would reflect a httle 
more. It seems to me that if anybody won’t waste his 
time learning how to do anything properly, he has to 
waste double as much in undoing it, and spoils his 
material into the bargain ! ” 

“ I supiDose it is my sympathies as a Church of England 
clergyman,” said ]VIr. Marten, “but these lay Dissent- 
ing preachers give me the horrors, with then: strong lan- 
guage and coarse vulgar illustrations. I remember I once 
heard one man compare God’s mysterious providences 
to a Kidderminster carpet. In this world, we saw it on 
the wrong side, all confusion and ends ; ‘ over Jordan,’ 
he said, we should see the right side and the beautiful 
pattern. And another said hfe was like a Sheffiel dwork- 
shop, joys and sorrows and troubles all hammering away 
together as if it was just a ‘ wild rout,’ but if he went 
into the Master’s warehouse, the flne cutlery there would 
show us there was a purpose in it all.” 

“ Well,” said Euth, “ illustrations are only meant to 
bring truth home to the hearers, not to display the 
artistic capabihties of the preacher. Those illustrations 


90 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


might have been out of place before a fashionable con- 
gregation in a cathedral town, but as the greater should 
include the less, they Would not have been so mal-a- 
propos there as a bishop’s delicate metaphors of moun- 
tain scenery and high art would be if delivered in a 
manufacturing village in the flat, prosaic midlands. The 
truth is, Mr. Marten, I think there is no sermon worth 
a brave plain fact, and that a few very simple words 
spoken by a man whose life is among the people he ad- 
dresses, and whom they see to keep righteous and un- 
tainted through the trials and temjitations w^hich en- 
danger themselves, is worth the finest discourse of a 
‘ parson ’ whose thrusts they can parry, with the awkward 
fact that ‘he don’t know nothing about it.’ If we only 
knew dainty white hot-house flowers, we should think 
such purity to be impossible except in such a shelter, 
but when we see the snowdrop peeping up out of the 
brown winter ruin, w^e know better. All the time we 
have been talking, I have had in my mind’s eye a good 
old man who holds cottage services about six miles from 
here. He was a ‘scarecrow’ boy in his young days, 
being left a friendless orphan, with every excuse to 
become a public nuisance in some jail or workhouse, 
but he is now in humble retirement on the small savings 
of a laborious and respected life, so that he has fairly 
earned his only coveted luxury, as he says, of leisure 
‘to work straight for his master.’ I should like you to 
hear him.” 

The end of it was, that last night we three took a 
drive to the old preacher’s house. ]\Ir. Marten had his 
top-coat buttoned over his clerical waistcoat and tie. He 
thought he was doing something decidedly eccentric and 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 


91 


improper, and I am afraid he enjoyed the sensation and 
the idea of disguise ! 

The service was held in a large, low chamber, with 
coarse pottery on the mantel, and a few black profiles and 
gay Scripture prints hung irregularly over the rough 
walls. The audience were ranged in rows on rude 
benches, and every face was hard-working and care- 
worn, except that of a tall, fair-haired young man, whom 
I knew to be the son of the richest manufacturer in the 
coimty, but who was evidently too familiar with such 
primitive scenes to notice the ludicrous in the tuneless 
fiddle that led the hymn, or in the good housewife's 
anxious glance towards her saucepan when it threatened 
to bon over in the middle of the prayer. It was a story 
in the neighbourhood that this youth had been “con- 
verted ” by my good friend, the venerable preacher, who 
stood behind the kitchen table, wliich supported his 
family Bible, with his thin grey hair shading a complex- 
ion like a healthy apple when we take it from the store 
basket about Christmas time. It was said that about 
two years back the young gentleman had taken a long 
ride to “ enjoy the fun of the old man’s reported 
eccentricity, but that he rode back in the darkness not 
the same youth that had come that way in the earher 
twilight. Some people whispered the history with much 
such stupefied superstition as they might have recounted 
the potent virtues of a mysterious charm. Others told 
it with incredulous scorn. Now I think people may 
puzzle themselves for ever over instantaneous conver- 
sion. I wish we could find some other words to express 
the meaning. These words are good words, but they 
have been pulled out of shape, and worn threadbare in 


92 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


wrong uses. Tlie matter is simple enongli when we feel 
it. And until then it has nothing to do with us. I 
believe that all conversion is instantaneous, like sun- 
shine. The sunshine may come to some before they 
notice its absence, and they have to look back and re- 
member to know how dreary it was without it, while 
others feel there is something wanting in the beauty of 
life, and sit down in the rain and watch the storm clouds, 
and watch, and watch, and see the golden light brighten 
and fade and brighten again. But it bursts out suddenly 
at last — ^just when it will ! You can’t get it up at an 
appointed time, like fireworks. When we have had a 
godly upbringing, few but ourselves are likely to know 
when it takes place, any more than one can tell the 
precise moment when the buried seed begins to fructify. 
And if it comes to us while we are very young we may 
not understand what it is, and may not mark it untd it 
has attained a goodly growth. And what is it ? Well, 
it is not a ceasing from sin. Criminals we may never 
have been, and sinners we shall continue to be as long as 
we five. It is not an “interest in rehgion” (another 
threadbare phrase), for most decent children have serious 
thoughts, and feel imeasy when they stay from church, 
or forget to read their texts. I think it can’t be better 
defined than as a revelation that Christianity is not in 
church-going and Bible-reading, but in a way of life 
which we can’t live in our own strength, but for which 
divine worship and Scripture study teach us where 
to find help. We suddenly see that we have mis- 
taken the producing machinery for the product itself, 
and comprehend that holiness does not so much 
lead us to do anything different from many other 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 93 

people, but only to do the same things in a different 
spirit. 

Old Robert Orme, the preacher, is one of those genial 
men who make no secret of then* history or inner experi- 
ence, thinking it is the corner of God’s providence which 
God intended for their especial study. So whenever any 
episode of his life can point a text, or serve in encourage- 
ment or warning, he would think it a sin to withhold it. 
The incidents may be homely, but that only brings them 
nearer to his homely hearers, and his own heartfelt con- 
viction of God’s personal love and care must save many 
a poor soul from the dreary and demoralising feeling of 
being lost in a crowd, unnoticed by a Being who cannot 
possibly take an individual interest in anybody lower than 
a lord of a manor. 

It happened that yesterday was his seventieth birth- 
day. And he took for his text the last clause of the 
fifteenth verse of the forty-eighth chapter of Genesis : 
“ The God which fed me all my life long unto this day.” 
There was nobody there, except perhaps myself and Mr. 
Marten, who did not know the leading facts of his hfe, 
but as Robert Orme said, “a garrulous old body hkes to 
talk it all over to his children, and I havn’t any children 
except all of you.” And so he began, telhng how his 
father had been the son of a small Northumbrian farmer, 
and might have filled a respectable position in society, 
but being wild and reckless, and perhaps something 
worse, had sunk lower and lower, untH a month before 
his boy’s birth he died in a debtor’s prison — surely peni- 
tent enough, Robert added simpl}^ “ for my mother al- 
ways taught me that both my fathers were in heaven. I 
should know my mother if she stood here now,” Robert 


94 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


went on, ‘‘ thongh she died when I was only six years 
old. She had hard work to keep herself and me, and I 
suppose she died of trying to do her duty, which is the 
best chariot a body can have to go to heaven in. I re- 
member when there wasn’t much bread in the cupboard, 
she would say she didn’t want any, and would go on 
working while I ate it all up. I was only a little chap, 
and hadn’t much sense, and I used to think what a good 
thing it was mother was never hungry except when there 
was plenty. Ah, I didn’t understand women in those 
days ! I don’t say I understand them now. I should be 
an uncommon clever man if I did. But now I understand 
enough to know that I’m not up to them. And its aye 
something to know there is something beyond us. That 
man must have a poor idea of the ocean who would 
think he could measure it in his own little drinking-cup. 
We are never higher than when we see there’s some- 
thing above us. When you’re in a hill-country, while 
you’re in the valley, you don’t think there’s much differ- 
ence in the heights round you, but directly you go up 
one you’ll find out the hill that is highest. My mother 
taught me what a parent’s love is, and when I heard 
God’s love was gi-eater still, that meant something 
indeed. 

“I remember when she died,” he continued. “ She 
died in the early morning, and the woman who was 
nursing her, when she saw she was going, took me out 
of my little bed, and carried me to her for a last kiss. 
I did not understand all I -was losing, else, maybe, I 
should not have taken such a clear notice of what hap- 
pened. I heard the nurse tell afterwards that she could 
not hear what Mrs. Orme muttered when she saw her 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 


95 


little boy. But I heard, and so did God. She said, ‘ I’m 
leaving my darling with you, my Father. Nobody beside. 
But Thou art enough. In Thee is all else. What I give 
Thee, Thou wilt not lose. Whatever he may want, Thou 
canst supply.’ Ah,” the old man used to add, the tears 
standing on his ruddy cheeks, ‘‘often and often, when 
God has sent me good things that I never dreamed of 
asking. I’ve thought, — that’s all through mother’s prayer, 
‘ Whatever he may want.’ Does anybody say my mother 
left me unprovided for? I say no. The legacy of . that 
prayer was a richer fortune than thousands in the Bank of 
England without it. You can’t provide for your child by 
any other means in the world. You may leave it money, 
and land, and guardians. And banks may break, and law- 
suits fad, and Death remove, and dishonesty corrupt, tdl 
your child may have nothing left, but the disheartening 
feeling of loss. Or if things prosper, and your child comes 
into his fine fortune, then you can’t prevent him running 
through it, and melting away your gold into an easy slide 
down to heU. But if you put your child into God’s hands, 
whether or no there is anything else to put with it, He’ll 
manage it all for the best. It’s a gi'and thing that prayer 
will keep hold of a body anywhere. A boy may run 
away from home and lose himseK in the Australian bush, 
or the American gold-fields, or a girl may float off in that 
terrible tide that rushes through om’ great cities, but 
they can’t get away from their old mother while she 
kneels down at her bedside and puts the Lord in mind 
of aU his precious i^romises. Prayer joins mortal love 
with divine strength. 

“ My mother was buried two days after her death, and 
the day after the funeral, the bits of furniture were given 


96 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


uj) to pay the last fortnight’s rent. That was all that 
was owing, and the things fairly made up the difference, 
so nobody was any worse for trusting mother. Our 
landlord had a brother in the country fifty miles away, 
who could find a use for a httle chap like me, scaring 
birds and such hke. So I was sent off. And my look 
round our httle room, with mother’s workbox stiU stand- 
ing on the table, was the last I had of any home, till I 
was six-and-twenty, when the Lord put me in the way of 
a httle lassie who was wiUing to help me to make a home 
for myself.” 

Kobert Orme did not say much about those twenty 
lonely years of his hfe. We caught glimpses of them 
now and then, as when he told us how, when ten years 
old, at a fair, he had a mental conflict whether he should 
buy a new cap or a Pilgiim’s Progress. “ If I’d had my 
mother with me,” he said, “ she’d have advised for the 
book. It was advice I wanted. So God made up my 
mind for me, and I bought Bunyan. It was wonderful 
in what a many ways Bunyan was useful to me. There 
was such a grand differ between the manner of his book, 
and the trashy books the other farmer-lads had, that I lost 
all patience with them and never read another. Then the 
characters were all real Hving bemgs to me, and I couldn’t 
help measuring them with the people round me. Mercy 
was my favorite. And I couldn’t fancy Mercy going 
about in washed-out flounces, and tawdry fid-fads of 
coloured glass and rusty gilt hke most of the girls in the 
factory near-hand. When I was fifteen I saw a girl that 
I thought must look hke her. She had on a sensible 
merino frock, and a bit of green ribbon in her bonnet, 
and her face was like a pink-tipped daisy. I’d got into 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 


97 


a many slovenly ways by that time, only likely, maybe, 
with no mother to look after me. But God, he was looking 
after me. D’ye think slovenly ways are beneath his notice ? 
I wonder how many the devil has got hold of, because they 
would not take the trouble to wash their hands. And so 
God led me to notice that little lass, and, natural enough, I 
felt I’d no right to look at such as her unless I made my- 
self spruce and clean ; and when I was spruce and clean, 
the rougher sort of boys didn’t want anything to do with 
me, save, maybe, to take a sight at me round the comer ! 
And that left me plenty more time to read my two or 
three books, and potter about in my bit of garden, and I 
reared one or two flowers that took the notice of the 
squire’s gardener, and he used to let me into his green- 
houses, and put me up to a thing or two, tiU it came into 
my mind I’d better be a gardener than an agricultural 
laborer. He got me an under-place, and I was very well 
satisfied, and moved into decenter lodgings in a house 
in the same row with the bonnie little lass, and from 
constantly passing each other as we came in and out, at 
last we got as far as to say ‘ good morning ; ’ — on the 
strength of which, at young squire’s coming of age when 
I was eighteen, I downright made up to her, and sat 
next her at the feast they gave us on the lawn. But the 
very next week after that, she went on a visit to an aunt 
of hers in Nottingham, and there she got the offer of a 
good situation, and so she stopped. That was the first 
trouble of my hfe. It may seem a little thing looking 
back on’t, and I and my wife often laugh over it, but it’s 
wonderful what a deal of joy or sorrow may be in a httle 
thing. \ A very httle pea in your shoe will give you 
precious uneasy walking.^ It was like a stab to go home 
5 


98 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


at night, and know that, however long I might hang 
about at the gate, there’d be no pretty httle girl coming 
down the lane, with a pleasant word for a body. There 
were plenty other lasses, and 111 not deny some of them 
were pretty and good and pleasant enough, but the more 
they were hke my Bessie, the harder it seemed that she 
wasn’t there herself. Presently Bessie’s friends moved 
away, and I lost aU word of her. I made up my mind 
that she’d marry in Nottingham. Not knowing much of 
the world then, I thought it wasn’t hkely a dear little 
woman like that would be left single. And so I just went 
on with my gardening, and got a better place, and put 
by a bit of money. There were plenty temptations for 
me, and it was miserable enough knocking about in lodg- 
ings. But God had known all about it, and many a time 
I thanked Him on my bended knee for that, glimpse of 
Bessie, though I was such a fool that I never thought of 
asking Him to let me see her again. W^as it because I 
thought He couldn’t do it ? Or did I think it wasn’t 
worth His while ? How it must grieve Him when we 
don’t believe He is tender enough to be pitiful towards 
any of our wants ! 

“ Well, I came to be six-and-twenty, and you may be 
quite sure I’d left off grieviug after Bessie. Healthy 
people, with plenty to do, don’t go frettiag for years. I 
had not forgotten her. I’d never seen another I hked so 
weU, and I made up my miud I’d live single till I did. 
I wouldn’t marry in a makeshift, I’d seen enough of 
that. If a man marries for a housekeeper without wages, 
it’s precious bad housekeeping he is hkely to get. And 
serves him right ! 

^‘When I was six-and-twenty I took a hohday. A 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 


99 


mate of mine liad taken a gardener’s place at a fine hall 
about twenty miles away, and he was always writing 
about such wonders there, that I thought I’d go and 
see ’em. I asked three days’ leave-of-absence, and got 
them. Dear me, I never shall forget how queer I felt to 
have all that time to myself in my Sunday clothes ! I’d 
never felt such a feehng before, and if I’d known as much 
then as I know now, I should have known something was 
going to happen. Now, my friends, you needn’t turn up 
your noses, and tell me you have no patience with 
fancies, and that the future is hid with God, and aU that. 
I’m not denying it. God knows what the weather will 
be to-morrow, but if it is going to be a particularly fine 
day, you’ll see the promise in the sunset, and I don’t 
suppose there’s an old woman among you who does not 
say sometimes, ‘ There’s a storm brewing, I can feel the 
thunder in the air.’ D’ye think it was blasphemy to 
make the hnes — 

‘An evening red and a morning gray, 

Are the sure signs of a bonnie day ’ 

I think it’s rather more blasphemy to refuse to use the 
senses God gave us. And as the shepherd is a fool who 
does not learn the signs in the sky, so I don’t know any 
other name for the man who does not learn the signs in 
his own life. Don’t be afraid of them. Don’t make be- 
Heve that you don’t see them when you do. That won’t 
keep them away. The weather-wise man don’t have 
worse weather than any one else, and when he sees the 
clouds rising he gets out his overcoat and his umbrella. 
He may be in a bad case if he hasn’t either, for he feels 
the storm both in fear and fact. But to say you’d rather 
not think about trouble till it comes, is as wise as to 


100 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


prefer being drenched to the skin to carrying a cloak. 
All you have to do is to get close to your Kefuge, and the 
warning before hand just gives you time to get back to 
it, if you’ve wandered a httle away, as we’re all likely to 
do. t ‘In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his 
paviHon ; in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide 
me.’ I 

“ I’m ashamed to say I’ve always taken more notice 
of the grey sunsets than the rosy ones. If I’d felt there 
was joy coming to me that June morning. I’d have been 
half afraid to believe it. Ah, friends, we have no need 
to look far for the curse that father Adam brought upon 
us. Just take up your nearest blessing, and you’ll see it 
plainest there, as a black smut shows worst on a white 
dress. We’re afraid of our very happiness, and not need- 
lessly, for there isn’t a crown in this world that hasn’t a 
cross made up into it somehow. But we are not to re- 
fuse the crown to escape the cross. If we try to do that, 
we shall get the cross without the crown. And now, 
friends, let me tell you an old gardener’s secret. When 
you look upon the green blessings that God has planted 
round you, don’t you jump to the conclusion that every 
bit of brown is blight. I remember when I was quite a 
young man, my mistress sent for me into the drawing- 
room, and there she was, standing by her fern-case. ‘ And 
oh, gardener,’ says she, ‘ what shall I do ? Here is my 
beautiful Royal fern that my cousin brought me from 
Killamey aU withering down.’ I looked at it, and true 
enough, it was aU brown and crumpled. ‘ But it’s not 
dead, ma’am,’ says I. ‘ Dear me, isn’t it ? ’ she said. ‘ It 
looks uncommonly like it. It spoils the looks of all the 
rest Can’t we just take away that faded frond, gar- 


A ROUGH DIAMOND.^ 


lOI 


dener ? ’ ‘ Of course, we can do whatever you like, ma’am,’ 
says I, ‘ but what you call blight is the fertility of the 
fern.’ And my lady put up with the brown-looking thing 
after that. And it’s the same with you, friends. If you 
understood your blessings as God does, you’d know that 
what you call blight is more hke blossom. ( The dying 
down on earth is the dropping of seed for heaven. Let 
us take the bit of brown among the green, and thank 
God for all. J 

“ Well, I’ve wandered far away from my June holiday 
in my Sunday clothes. I hope I’ve not tired you out. 
Some folks say that in travelling or telling a story, or 
most things, one should go on straight and turn neither 
to the right hand nor to the left. I think it depends 
upon circumstances. If everybody did that, I wonder 
w^ho’d find the beautiful mosses and precious wee plants 
that God hides away in shady comers, as a loving father 
tucks the new toy under the sofa cushion to give his 
children the pleasure of finding it out ? 

“ It was a weary, long journey before I reached my 
mate, and I was as tired and hot and flustered as possi- 
ble, and he saw plain enough that I had no eyes for any 
of his fine shows until I had taken some dinner and a 
rest. After that I went over the place with him. The 
family was away, and my friend seemed in good favour 
with everybody, for when the housekeeper saw us talking 
to the head-gardener she came out, and said we might 
come in and have a look through the rooms, and won- 
derl'ul fine rooms they were, and I was sorry to hear 
that the young lord was a poor ailing creature that the 
climate didn’t suit, so that he Lived chiefly in lodgings 
over in some Popish part. And after we had been 


102 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


througli, a responsible-looking, middle-aged woman came 
to us, and said there was tea for us in the kitchen. I’d 
never been in a lord’s house before, and I knew my old 
master wouldn’t have hked his servants asking company. 
So I said something about that. And didn’t she laugh. 
‘ We shouldn’t give two thoughts about setting a chair 
for any of our people’s friends,’ she said. ‘My lord 
would think the credit of the old house was gone if we 
didn’t. There’s enough and to spare, thank God ; but 
if there wasn’t, our hospitahty would be the last thing 
to feel the pinch,’ So we went into the kitchen, which 
was a finer place than I’d ever seen before that day. 
Amd we sat down to table, quite a party it seemed, but 
presently I heard it wasn’t everybody, for one of tho 
young women said she was afraid ‘ Bessie wouldn’t get 
back till the tea was cold.’ 

“ There’s plenty of Bessies in the world. I knew six 
in our old village. But when I heard of this Bessie, I 
was quite sure she was my Bessie. I remember I spilt 
my tea and made stupid company, and, when it was 
over, my mate couldn’t think why I kept on sitting. I 
was not going to stir till I’d seen Bessie. She didn’t 
come in till it was quite twilight, and I knew her step 
afore she came, and actually she’d still got a bit of green 
ribbon on her bonnet ! She had a basketful of some- 
thing, and she began emptying it, and talking to the 
cook, never looking at our comer, till I jumped up and 
said, ‘ Miss, I think us two have met before, long ago. 
Don’t you mind Bob Orme?’ And then she gave a 
startled little cry, with a sort of sound in it as if she’d 
thought about Bob Orme once or twice since she had 
seen him, and wasn’t altogether sorry to see him again ! 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 


103 


And wasn’t there a laugh through the kitchen. And, 
says my mate as we two walked back to his lodgings, 
says he, ‘ Bob, I did thmk it was un-common kiud of you 
to come all this way for to see me and the gim-cracks.’ 
And nothing I might say ever persuaded any of them to 
believe that I didn’t know Bessie was there before I came. 

“When I left at the end of my three days’ hohday, 
Bessie and I had come to the conclusion we would never 
lose sight of each other again. I remember one even- 
ing we had a talk about meeting in heaven. It was 
brought about by speaking of the many nice good peo- 
ple we had just come across, and then been parted from. 
Bessie was saying that the more good people one just 
saw, the greater longing one had for the place where 
they will all gather together, and never be separated. 
‘ But it puzzles me how we shall find each other out,’ 
said Bessie ; ‘ see how we two have missed each other 
in a few thousands of people just twenty miles apart, 
and then think what a large place the world is, and what 
a long time it has been going on, and heaven has been 
filling all that while !’ 

“ ‘ rU tell you what, Bessie,’ said I, ‘ we needn’t think 
about it, for God has the management of it all. And 
if you and I have been parted, Bessie, haven’t we met 
again ? And then nobody will be a stranger in heaven, 
Bessie. We shall love every face the moment we see 
it. And depend on it, we shall find out the old faces 
somehow. A httle silly child loses itself within sight 
of its home, but a grown man finds out his birthplace 
though he has been twenty years abroad, and everything 
is quite different to when he went away. So our souls 
■wilhgTow equal to heaven, Bessie, and then it won’t be 


104 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


larger to us than our town is now, which we think a 
large place, while Londoners call it a mere village. We 
need not fret about anything in heaven, lassie. God has 
told us that we shall be satisfied, and isn’t that enough ?’ 

“Bessie and I were married at the New Year. She 
would have been quite happy to have gone on hving in 
the old town. If a woman frets after more furniture or 
finer clothes, you young men may just make up your 
minds she does not love you, for if she do, she’U stand 
out that whatever you can give her is just what she 
wants, and that there’s nothing else in the world she’d 
care to have. But you mustn’t be gammoned that way. 
The better pleased she is with the cotton gown you 
bring her, the more reason that you should try to make 
it a silk one next time. So I took my httle bit of money 
out of the bank, and bought a small florist’s business 
near London, and there we went and lived. ’Twasn’t 
all brightness. The farmer would get poor crops if it 
was always sunshine. We had three httle boys, one 
after the other, and the longest the Lord could spare 
any of them was sis years. Folks used to say that my 
wife and me loved ’em too much. That’s devil’s doc- 
trine. Our hearts are far too shallow to grow too much 
love for anything. We can’t love our darhngs too much, 
but the harm is we may love them more than God. 
That isn’t loving them too weU, it is loving them the 
wrong way. I don’t know if we did that — we didn’t 
mean to. I’m not one of those who thinks that every 
soiTow must come to punish us for something. I don’t 
find that in the Bible. The rain comes because the 
grass wouldn’t gi’ow without it, yet we never say it 
comes in punishment. 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 


105 


I’ve got my mother’s prayer down in God’s book on 
my behalf, and I have a little lad’s prayer there as well. 
When my boy that hved the longest was just five years 
old, I was taken hke to die. It was the first illness I 
had ever had, and in those cases it is often first and last 
too. Well, the doctor gave me up, and I gave myself up 
too. It seemed very hard to leave Bessie and the httle 
ones, but I can’t say it seemed hard to die. You know 
when you look at any dark place, it seems very black, 
but if you’re in it, there’s generally some light. And I 
had stepped far enough into the dark valley to see that 
there’s some starlight gets down into it. And so I lay on 
my bed, and felt there was nothing for me to do but wait. 
And I almost fancied I could remember when I had lain 
as helpless m my cradle waiting for my mother. And as 
I lay I heard httle feet gomg up the stairs, poor httle 
heavy feet they were, for my boy was always weak on his 
legs, and I could hear his hand catching the banister 
rails to help him on. And then I heard the door m the 
room above me, and then a bump on the ceiling. The 
house was so quiet, I could hear my child praying — ‘ Our 
Father, mother says that you are going to send for daddy. 
Please don’t send for him yet. Let daddy hve to be an 
old man, our Father.’ And then I heard my boy pick- 
ing himself up by his hands and knees, and he came 
toddling down to my bedroom, and put his head round 
the door, and asked, ‘ Daddy, aren’t you better ?’ And 
somehow I did feel better that very minute ; and the 
next time the doctor came he said I had taken a turn. 
My little one did not pray as many of us do, as if he 
didn’t expect to be heard, or as if he knew beforehand 
that God’s will was against him, and just muttered over 
5 * 


io6 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


a form as a sort of civility. And I shouldn’t wonder that 
my ghmpse of his faith was a genuine tonic for me. 
Faith can’t be idle ; it works out its own vitahty. Christ 
said that whoever had a grain of it might move moun- 
tains. Depend on it he would take a shovel and spade, 
and dig away, and get as many as he could to help him. 
And that brings me to another point, my friends. Our 
faith is not of ourselves ; it is God’s gift. We should 
ask about that first ; for when we feel it strong in our 
souls, it is the shadow of his coming answer. Only shad- 
ows can’t fall on darkness. So if we let our heart get 
black with care and despondency, faith can’t enter ; and 
when God proves HimseK more kind than our fears have 
painted Him, then we get the blessing, but we lose the 
pleasure of expecting. Don’t you remember the story 
of Peter in prison, and how ‘ prayer was made without 
ceasing of the church unto God for him ;’ and how the 
angel came to Peter while he was sleeping — yes, sleep- 
ing, my friends. He had made up his mind he was to 
lose his head next day, but stiU he was sleeping. Peter 
was a married man, and perhaps he had some httle lads 
and lasses, but he was not lying awake fretting about 
them. And as for the loss of his own head, he knew 
there was about as much in that as if his old coat was 
to be tom in two. Peter knew what many of us don’t 
seem to beheve, that our life only uses our body as a 
garment, and that a spirit can do as well without a head 
as with one. Well, then the angel came and woke him, 
and took him to his friend’s house, and they w^ouldn’t 
believe it was him- — they wouldn’t beheve they had got 
what they had been asking for ! And that is like a good 
deal of our faith, bretliren. 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 


107 


“ And sometimes wlien we think we have faith, it isn’t 
faith in God, it is faith in our banker’s book or our 
breeches’ pocket. I’ve often had that sort of faith. I’ve 
thought I trusted God, because I knew there was plenty 
of money in the till, and I’ve found out my mistake, be- 
cause a bit of faith went off with every shilling, till there 
was none left at all. But do you know, I think God 
himself empties us of our faith sometimes. You see 
every good thing that gets into our hearts is like clear 
water poured into a dirty basin, after it stands a httle 
while it gets fouled and cloudy— ^a sediment of self-right- 
eousness at the bottom and muck of indolence at the top. 
And when God sees that, He turns the stop-cock, and 
drains it all out, and maybe uses some very shai^ tools 
to put the reservoir into better repair. Then we can’t 
help beiug miserable, but we ought to be as contented 
to bear the misery as we are to bear the paiu which we 
pay the dentist to give us, that we may get rid of a use- 
less tooth. When we are grown up, we don’t cry when 
we take physic, because we know it will do us good ; but 
in spiritual matters many of us keep hke foolish children 
to the very last, and never seem to understand that the 
sharpest pain may mean the surest cure. 

“ Anybody who has been into the depths of despair, and 
has felt God’s hand reach him in the dark there and 
draw him up, will never wish that he had not gone down. 
I am only a poor, unlearned man, and it wouldn’t have 
taken much to help me out of any of my troubles, except 
when the babies died. But we know that people may die 
of starvation in great cities, and food wasting in the very 
house next door. It is only God who can bring the want 
and the supply together. And that is what His mercy 


io8 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


generally does. * Oh, but/ I’ve heard folks say, ‘ I don’t 
see how my matters can mend, and I can’t expect God 
to work miracles for me.’ My friend, you must not 
fancy miracles are God’s feats. It is much more wonder- 
ful that He makes the sun to rise and set at its appointed 
time, than that He once stopped it for a while upon 
Gibeon. It is much more wonderful that He generally 
provides for you without those special providences that 
we call miracles, than that He occasionally lets the wheel 
of circumstance run into so bad a rut, that it can’t go on 
again without such a jilt as shakes up all your faith and 
gratitude. And yet, my friends, I know that we can’t 
remember the miles and miles of straight and easy driv- 
ing as weU as we do the crooked corner where we almost 
got a spill. 

“ I can tell you the story of the blackest days in my 
life. We were living up Highbury way. It was winter 
time, and business was bad, and Bessie was ill, and so 
was the boy, and it was no money coming in, and all 
money going out, as long as there was any to go — which 
wasn’t long. There were good jobs of work going for- 
ward in the neighborhood, but I was quite a stranger, 
and they all went past me. It came to the worst one 
Saturday. I woke up that morning with only a few shil- 
lings in the world, but directly after breakfast in came 
the plumber who had been doing something to my stove. 
And he had brought his biQ. I remember the amount 
weU enough. It is not likely I should ever forget it. It 
was seven and fourpence. And it would leave me ex- 
actly eightpence. He had only done the job on Monday, 
and I had hoped to get a little grace. Just as I was 
going to say so, he began, neighbor-like, to tell how hard- 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 


109 


up he was, and how it was very fine to work as he did, 
and yet have his honestly earned money shut up in other 
people’s tills, while his children almost wanted bread. I 
knew he was saying so to me, not thinking it a bit per- 
sonal, for up to that time the cash had always been ready 
the minute he wanted it, debt being something I mor- 
tally fear, ^ou may flounder out of almost any pond of 
difficulty unless you tie that millstone round your neck. 
After that I could not ask him to wait even until Mon- 
day, and if I had, I could no more have changed that 
seven and fourpence than I could have put my hand 
plump into his pocket. To keep another in his difficulties 
could not be God’s way of helping me out of mine. So 
I paid him. And then I went into the httle place behind 
my shop, and knelt down besides the stove with no fire 
in it. I can’t say I prayed. I only thought it all over 
— as Hezekiah spread out Sennacherib’s letter — before 
the Lord. And it came into my mind that there were 
two little accounts due to me. Both together wouldn’t 
make up what I had paid the plumber, and they had 
been owing a long time from shuffling sort of people, so 
that while I had anything better to do, I shouldn’t have 
felt justified in throwing away my time to look after them. 
But it was a sort of forlorn hope now, and I thought 
from it coming into my head that way, it was, maybe, 
the Lord’s will I should get them. Both the parties 
lived at Bermondsey, and I walked to London Bridge 
and took the train there. The first place I went to the 
landlady was very sour to me, and said that it was hard . 
she should be fagged off her legs answering the duns of 
a man that had gone away leaving rent unpaid, and no 
effects but a great trunk full of stones. I was sure it 


no 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


was hard enough, and I said I was sorry, and begged 
her pardon and went on to the next. I was not very 
sure of the way, and it was among new streets without 
even kerbstones put down, and with no names at tho 
comers, but I found it at last, and I stood, knocking and 
ringing for fully half an hour, but nobody answered, 
and a little girl from next door told me there was nobody 
at home. There was nothing for me but to go back to 
the station and get into the train again. O, but it was 
hard, hard! I’d thrown away the money that might 
have bought us at least a loaf for to-morrow, but even 
that wasn’t so bitter as the feeling that what I’d thought 
was the Lord’s guiding was only a wiU-o’-the-wisp. And 
I never did see such a lot of miserable people as I saw 
that day. It may be hard to see flaunting enjoyment 
when you’re down in the world, but it’s dreadful disheart- 
ening to see wretchedness heaped on wretchedness, as if 
the whole world was slipping down and you were sinking 
with it. Well, I got into a third-class carriage that was 
empty, for if there’s a time when trouble drives one 
among one’s fellows, there’s another time when it drives 
one away by oneself. In those days third-class carriages 
hadn’t glazed windows, but were just open at the sides 
like some of the cheap excursion trains now. I sat down 
in the comer, and laid my head on the sill, and I said, 

' Are you going to destroy me, Father ? Do you mean 
us to die of hunger ? 0 Father, the hunger is very near 
now, and you know what you mean to do with us, but 
we don’t know, and it is so hard ! O Father, the wife 
and the little one ! ’ 

“ The train was jolting along very roughly, and such a 
strong blast blew suddenly through the carriage that I 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 


Ill 


drew in my head, and turned round. And then I saw I 
wasn’t by myself after all. There was somebody sitting 
close beside me. A man. I’m not ashamed now to say 
that I was crying, but then I had that sort of touchy 
feeling that if anybody saw my tears it would make me 
hate ’em. So I turned back, and popped my head out 
again, and when the train stopped at the bridge, out I 
jumped, and never looked around. It had come on a 
regular stormy evening, and the snow beat strong in 
my face all the way up Cannon Street, which I think, at 
the best of times, isn’t a comforting street for a needy 
body, it seems so grand and Lord Mayorish — as if there 
was no business worth doing under a thousand pounds’ 
profit. On I went, stupefied hke, and presently I just 
thrust my hands into my pockets to keep them out of 
the cold and wet. My left hand took hold of something 
hard. What a jump my heart gave ! it felt so hke a shil- 
ling, but then I knew it couldn’t be, for shillings had not 
been so plentiful for a long time that any was hkely to 
be forgotten. I took it out and held it up to a colored 
fight in a chemist’s shop. It was a shillmg ! And I put 
my hand back into my pocket, and pulled out another — 
and another — and another until there were nine of them ! 
I couldn’t believe it. I stamped on the pavement to 
wake myself out of a dream that would make the reality 
crueller than ever, but I only hurt my feet for my pains, 
for my boots were not over-good. It wasn’t a dream. 
And it was the Lord who had put it into my mind to go to 
Bermondsey, although the help didn't come in the way 
that I expected. Ah, my friends, I have an idea that in 
heaven there will be some way to find out that stranger 
in the train ! 


II2 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


“ That was the last time I was ever in bitter trouble 
of that sort. The very next Tuesday a very odd old 
gentleman that lived not far from my place came into 
my shop, and gave me a good order. I can’t think what 
put it into his head, for he knew nothing about me, and 
was reputed close and queer in money matters, and cer- 
tainly wasn’t any flower-fancier, for he had lived in his 
house thirty years, and I’m sure nothing but weeds 
had grown in his garden till he sent for me that Tuesday 
morning. I’ve sometimes thought perhaps it was him 
who saw me in my doldrums in the train, and Bessie 
made up her mind that it was, and would tell him the 
whole story, as she said, ‘ to see how he looked,’ but he 
had one of those funny old faces that you may take any- 
how you hke. However, from that time, I was never quite 
out of work, and gradually I got on, and became well- 
to-do in my little way, and the better the business grew 
the more I wished I might keep my boy, as I began to 
see my way clear to make life pretty easy even to a 
poor httle ailing feUow hke him. It do seem strange 
that one left as I had been should weather everything, 
and another petted and sheltered should have the frost 
at its very roots. You’ll often see it so with plants. 
Well, the Lord did not take him away suddenly. He 
let me have plenty of time to flt my mind to His wiU. 
Of course, we know that all troubles come out of God’s 
permission, like all temptations, but then He lets some 
of them come that we may struggle with them and rise 
above them. And while human nature is human nature 
it will always be one thing to lose your sweetheart 
because some showy dandy cuts you out, or your business 
because somebody over the way undersells you, and 


A ROUGH DIAMOND. 


II3 

quite another thing when the silent angel comes softly 
in, and as he opens his wings to fold away your darhng, 
fills the house with the sweet ak that gets about him as 
he passes in and out of heaven. There’s no denying 
that there’s a solemn peace with death. I think it is 
because we feel the enemy has done his worst, and our 
Father has made it our best. I am sure that when 
Bessie and I sat hand in hand on the night of our boy’s 
funeral we felt that we had never loved him so well, nor 
each other more, nor God as much, as we did then. 

“ And so my life has passed on, and now I know it 
cannot be very long before the neighbours wiU say to 
each other, ‘ Old Robert Orme has gone.’ I think you 
all know me too well to think that I’m a conceited body 
to have said so much about myself, though a stranger 
once hinted as much after I’d been teUiug one or two of 
these same anecdotes. Dearie me, it only pleases me 
‘ to make my boast in the Lord,’ and to briug up how 
good He has always been to me, as worthless as I am. 
There’U be one or two of you pitiful enough to say I’ve 
not been quite worthless to you ; and, indeed, a man 
must be in a bad way who hasn’t one kind voice to say 
as much for him. But I’m not what I might have been, 
friends, and it’s awful to feel how little I’ve done that I 
might have done. There’s an awful depth in the confess- 
ion, ‘We have left undone those things we ought to 
have done.’ We don’t know half its meaning ; but God 
does. And yet He’ll own us for his children. It’s a 
solemn thing to be wrapped in such a cloak of unde- 
served love. What must it be when we force ourselves 
out of it, hard as it is to be so ? Rather let us wrap 
ourselves in it, brethren ; let us fold it round and round 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


1 14 

US till we lose ourselves in it, and never remember our- 
selves again till we bear our name called from that 
heavenly roll-book which Jesus has written with his 
blood!” 

“If he had only been educated!” said Mr Marten, as 
we came out. 

“ He’ll do as he is,” Kuth returned, and then we aU 
paid him the compliment of silence. 


IV. 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 

YDIA HOWEL was one of the happiest women I 



J_j ever knew. She was about ten years younger 
than me. Her father was the only builder in both Mal- 
lowes, and was supposed to have a respectable fortune, for 
they lived in one of those old-fashioned red-brick houses 
with paved court-yards and iron gates, which give a cer- 
tain distinction to one end of the High Street. She her- 
self was thought the prettiest child in the place, an 
opinion endorsed by the notice bestowed on her by old 
Miss Capel, whose father had been a major-general, and 
who we understood had once peeped between the 
barriers of social circles before whose glories the lights 
of the Manor and the Clockhouse waned very dim and 
pale. iVIiss Capel bestowed her old court pearls on 
Lydia Howel, the builder’s daughter, and sorely pei> 
plexed Mrs. Howel by a further present of a “ brocade 
sack,” which had been worn only once, fifty years before, 
at a grand rout given by the Marchioness of Somewhere, 
and which would “ cut down ” beautifully for the “ rising 


belle.” 


“ It cost its price when ii was new, it tells that story 
till to-day,” confided chatty, genial Mrs. Howel ; “ and 
I’m sure it’s very kind of Miss Capel to think of Lydia, 
and I shouldn’t value it a bit the less if I laid it aside in 
a drawer along with Howel’s mother’s sable tippet, that 


(ns) 


ii6 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


I’m always afraid the moths will get at. But IVIiss 
Capel wouldn’t understand that. And I must say I can’t 
bear second-hand fineries, neither the look nor the 
ideas of ’em. And I don’t see any honour in its 
being worn at the Marchioness’s party, and I wonder 
that Miss Capel should mention it, for she was telling 
some queer stories about that very lady only last week, 
and I made bold to say I should be sorry to have been 
on speaking terms with such a character, and it’s Miss 
Capel’s fault if she made her out worse than she was. 
But I’m sure one of those checked silks the draper is 
selling at half-a-crown a yard would become our Lydia a 
deal better. But a present is a present, and if you 
shght one that don’t suit you, you may five to want one 
that does.” 

Lydia was the only child in the Howel’s old-fashioned 
substantial home. A thorough home it was, bearing the 
stamp of years of affluence and comfort, which is some- 
thing that mere wealth cannot buy just when it pleases. 
No bran-new terrace with Grecian nymphs on its pedes- 
tals could impress one like the old half-circular flight of 
steps, considerably worn in the middle, and flanked by 
the two ugly stone lions, who looked but fiercer and 
more dauntless under the havoc which time and storms 
had wrought upon their features. Not that the old house 
had any aristocratic associations. It was built late in 
the seventeenth century by a Dutch merchant, one of 
those worthy workers who slowly made honest wealth, 
so that their characters formed with their fortune, and 
the man never commanded less respect than his money. 
From his family it passed to the Howels, and thus in 
nearly a century and a half it had known but two house- 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


1 17 

holds. Nor did it ape anything above its owner’s degree. 
The men who built and kept it had unconsciously 
wrought into it their own independent honesty. No 
conservative oak or distinguished cedar screened it from 
the public way, but just two sturdy plebian elms, spread- 
ing out bountiful branches, under shade of which Owen 
Howel’s workmen were wont to lounge while they waited 
for their weekly wage. Double doors had the old 
house, and the outer one stood always open to give free 
ingress to the front room on the right, whose tail 
narrow windows were shaded by short wire-blinds, 
announcing “ Owen Howel, Builder,” surmounted with 
som§ masonic hieroglyphic. The Dutch merchant had 
fitted it up as a coimting-house, and it had always kept 
its original name and use. The room on the left was 
the common family apartment, and despite its hospitable 
table and snug settees, it never bore any more imposing 
name than “the parlour,” just as the great chamber 
above, stretching the whole -svidth of the house, was 
simply “ the tea-room.” 

Owen Howel himseK was a great genial man, with 
large rough-cut features, that seemed only to want a 
little more chiselling to be handsome. But for his un- 
mistakable name, one could never have suspected his 
Welsh descent. He had neither the Cambrian superiori- 
ties nor defects. I think I should have taken him for a 
native of the north, with possibilities of an Iiish cross in 
his pedigree. He had passed the conventional time (or 
a httle less) at Hopleigh Grammar School, and had got 
just that amount of learning which might be expected in 
a boy not especially industrious, but full of animal life, 
and not much disturbed by paternal surveillance. But 


ii8 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


if there was an occasional flaw in the grammar or even 
the orthography of Owen Howel’s contracts, the^e was 
never a hole in their performance. He had chosen a 
congenial wife — a buxom hearty dame, at whose book- 
learning a modem National-school child would scoff, but 
who managed her house like the wise women at the end 
of the Proverbs, and by kitchen cookery and sound un- 
sparing advice had reprieved more than one neighbour 
from death and the doctor’s prophecies. It was always 
a treat to take tea with the Howels. Without being 
greedy of good things, there is a comfortable sense of 
hospitality in their hberal presence. The table might 
not be recherche^ and I don’t suppose Mrs. Howel even 
knew that fashion interfered in such arrangements, but 
generosity and good-will can never be vulgar, and I must 
say I am primitive enough to prefer an abundant supply 
of honest English fruit on a stone-china plate to three 
diminutive clusters of foreign grapes and a pair of 
plated scissors, in a frosted glass dish, on the top of a 
silver palm-tree, and everybody afraid to help himself 
for fear there will be nothing left for anybody else. And 
if Mrs. Howel ever discovered a guest’s particular taste, 
she was sure to remember it. Was it because she was 
an inferior woman with no mind above her cooking 
range ? Well, I once heard a young Scotchman say that 
he was just beginning to think certain gay new English 
friends much wiser than the old folks at home, and was 
almost subscribing to their views of Simday non-obser- 
vance and week-night ir-rational amusement, when the 
sight of Mrs. Howel’s scones, made in comphment to his 
nationality, touched a queer httle chord m his heart, 
which set the old home tune agoing again. Go on with 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


II9 

your mathematics and your algebra, my superior young 
female friends with the not very pretty faces, but it will 
be a long time before your cubes and your triangles will 
bring you to a triumph hke that ! 

Amid the brown homeliness of the house and the 
household, little Lydia Howel bloomed like an apple 
blossom on a rough old tree. I am sure she had a very 
happy childhood, and that the sympathy occasionally 
bestowed upon her isolation by the mothers of crowded, 
scrambhng, unindividualised famihes was quite wasted. 
Her father and mother were children in the ideal sense 
of childhood, for they were both unworldly and unworn. 
I often thought the whole village could give no prettier 
Xhcture of domestic life, than Lydia seated on the window- 
sill of the parlour giving her mother real interest and 
dehght by reading aloud from a story-book. Mrs. Howel 
was a sincere listener, who laughed and cried at the 
right places, and never needed a resume of last night’s 
reading, nor mteirupted a hero’s death-bed scene, with 
an “ I beg your pardon, my dear, but there’s the butcher’s 
wife gone by with another new bonnet — ^her third this 
summer ! No wonder we have to pay for our meat ! ” 
IVIrs. Howel believed in books. For her the story was 
true and the characters real. “ If it’s not a fact, it ought 
to be,” I have heard her say, in defence of her enthusiasm 
over some pathetic incident, “and I am one of those 
that believe that whatever ought to be, is.” 

Then a little later in the evening, strollers in the High 
Street might often hear Owen Howel and his daughter 
singing together. Their voices might be rather unequally 
matched, and Mr. Howel blundered sometimes, but I 
pity anybody whose tastes are so fine that any such 


120 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


superficial deficiency blinds them to the very soul of 
beauty and harmony. But then I am not musical. The 
song which touched me most in all my life, was not that 
which I heard a great prima donna sing at a festival in 
the county town. No ; I heard it by the fire-hght in a 
small shabby room, a young widow sitting at an old 
cracked piano, sadly singing a gay air she had sung in 
the days of her love and happiness. It was to please the 
dead husband’s doited mother, who sometimes fancied 
her boy was in the next room, and in the twilight used 
,to ask for “Charlie’s song.” But, I repeat, I don’t 
understand music. I can only make out that it is one 
form of emotional expression, and it seems to me that 
may sometimes be truest in a faltering note, or an utter 
break-down. 

And Lydia Howel was such a good httle girl. She 
had a small Sabbath class in an orphan school a httle 
way out of the village, and I don’t think she missed it 
one Sunday all the year round. She used to visit all the 
uninteresting, neglected people in the neighborhood, 
making herseh look her best in her pretty bright fineries, 
and airing all her innocent mirth and gossip at the scanty 
tea-tables of soured women, who hated her for her very 
efforts to please them, and would have been more cheered 
if she had come in sackcloth and ashes. “ Very easy for 
her to be good,” I have heard some of them say. “ It 
would be more shame for her if she were not good, when 
all the world she lived in seemed made for her. She 
would not always have her father and mother to make 
a fool of her. Wait and see then ! ” That used to put 
me in mind of a certain individual who went up among 
the sons of God, and asked in cruel sarcasm, “Doth Job 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


I2I 


fear God for nonglit?” "Why can’t people look at a 
good life tkat seems all liappiness just as they look upon 
a rose, as something that brings beauty and gladness 
even to themselves ? The world can’t be so very, very 
bad, where such roses can bloom at all. But, alas ! they 
certainly fade very quickly. 

Some people — and they were generally those whose 
own sons gave them the least cause for thanksgiving — 
used to be always feeling for poor kir. Howel, with that 
good business of his, and all his money, having only one 
child, and that a daughter. It just verified the truth that 
nobody could have everything. They could not think 
why IMr. Howel gave himself so much trouble, up at six 
in the morning and out among his men — for he must 
have a good bit of money already — quite as much as it 
would be wise to leave to a girl. 

Now Owen Howel had had a younger brother, Llew- 
ellyn. Owen and Llewellyn had played together in Mal- 
owe High Street, and fought for each other on the green, 
but inside the grammar school Llewellyn had always 
been a class or two a-head of his elder brother. It was 
not his glory to scramble among the timber, and dehght 
their father’s workmen by j)ertinent questions, as was 
Owen’s wont. And so Owen alone kept to the family 
business, and Llewellyn became a dissenting minister, 
and was appointed to a httle chapel on the Welsh coast, 
near Conway. The two brothers never met again. 
Travelling cost considerable time and money in those 
days, and Owen was too busy and Llewellyn too poor 
for long journeys. They never saw each other’s wives, 
but IVIrs. Owen put on mourning and shed very sincere 
tears when Mrs. Llewellyn died. Nor, I think did they 
6 


122 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


correspond very frequently. The builder, at least, was 
scarcely a letter-writing man. So they cheerfully sub- 
mitted to the necessity under which one ripened family 
circle splits into many. But there is a healthy affection 
which does not die in separation and silence. And when 
a second black-edged letter with the Conway post-mark 
came to Owen Howel, I daresay the good man and his 
wife lay awake that night, and talked over old times and 
whispered about the orphan boy in the far-away house 
by the moaning sea, and perhaps Owen remembered 
how Lewellyn had once written that his boy Tom was 
not over fond of learning, and did not want to be a par- 
son, or anything of that sort. And then I daresay Owen 
said they must look after the lad. And then there would 
be a pause, till he would add that though the business 
was worth a great deal in itself, it wouldn’t realize much 
for Lydia after aU — and if this boy would take to it — 
weJl — surely Owen’s daughter would not suffer in the 
welfare of Llewellyn’s son — he had often wondered 
whether Llewellyn had his full share of everything. And 
then Mrs. Owen would suggest that the nephew had 
better come up and see them, it was dree to think of 
him in that lone house among the rocks, he would be 
catching rheumatic fever with unaired linen, or be starved 
with wretched cooking, or something awful. “Write 
and ask him to-morrow,” I think she would say. And 
jVIr. Owen wrote, and there would be plenty of kindness 
to peep through the stiff, formal phrases that would be 
sure to stick about his unaccustomed pen. 

The nephew arrived, six feet high, and handsome and 
interesting in his black clothes. “ He brought very little 
luggage,” said the gossips ; “ depend on it, a fine young 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


123 


fellow like that won’t settle in any such dull place as 
Mallowe, whatever his uncle may wish. There are better 
prizes in the world than anything in the old Red House 
and the timber-yard.” But before a week was out, he 
was seen with Mr. Howel, actively interested among the 
workmen, and then the sympathies which had been wasted 
on Lydia’s sonless parents were suddenly transferred to 
herself, and a cry went roimd the Mallowe tea-tables that 
everybody could see how it was to be managed. Of 
course, the young man would be ready enough to step 
into his uncle’s connexion with just the burden of the 
daughter, for, after aU, Lydia was pretty and nice enough 
as girls go. And she, poor child, would have no voice in 
the matter. The poor, dear darling! To be sure, it 
might be called providiug for her, and so it would be 
simply interest and convenience on all sides, if one could 
bring oneself to look on it in what might be called a 
sensible hght. But feehng miuds could not but wish 
such a sweet young creature some better fate than to be 
the mere make-weight in a bargain. Ah ! spoilt children 
are often expected to suffer for their spoiling, like the 
innocent lambs that those ancient Greeks and Romans 
used to pamper and crown for the sacrifice. It was to 
be hoped that the youth’s sense of duty would ensure 
kind treatment for the poor httle darhng ; but, oh ! it 
was a great risk I Thank God, their own dear girls had 
nothing to tempt any mercenary, and could be chosen 
only for their intrinsic merits which, to be sure, were 
worth more than any fortune. 

Well, it did no harm to the Howels, who were not the 
sort of parents to realize that their daughter had become 
an interesting young lady in long dresses and glossy 


124 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


braids. They were both blindly innocent to all peculiar 
significance in the new state of family affairs, rather too 
bhndly innocent perhaps, only that Providence often 
helps such people to do very shrewd things without 
knowing it. 

Tom Howel was decidedly la noticeable young man. 
There- was a sea-breeze about him. The fresh west 'wind 
was in his hair, and the light of the sunny waters was in 
his fearless eyes. You could easily imagine the life he 
had hved in the old Welsh cottage, and the darhng he 
had been among the fishermen and sailors. Tom had 
been out through stormy nights, had seen the lightning 
on the black raging sea, which, for himself, he feared no 
more than he presently learned to fear his aunt, when 
she gave him a good scolding for forgetting to change 
his boots, or to come in for his lunch. Tom knew what 
it was to sit Sunday after Sunday, and pray and praise 
in a chapel where the dead people were carried after ship- 
wrecks. Just to look at Tom somehow made one think 
of adventures, and northwest passages, and desert is- 
lands ; and when one’s eyes passed on Lydia, one remem- 
bered all the dear little foohsh women, who bear aU the 
pathos of these heros’ life, and whose pain and patience 
make that sweet imder-note without which no song is 
sweet, and no story worth telling. 

I don’t know whether those who accused the senior 
Howels of match-making, and pitied Lydia’s melancholy 
doom, imagined that the stem necessity of obedience to 
a parent’s iron wiU, taught her hand that tender little 
clinging to her cousin’s arm, and gave her eyes that cgn- 
stant smiling glance up to his handsome face ! Was that 
the reason why she so quickly learnt sundry new pieces 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


125 


of music — pieces with a nor’-wester energy about them, 
so that more than once I have seen a stray-passer by 
leaning against the gate, drinking in every note of “ When 
the wind blows in from the sea,” in which Tom’s fine 
tenor came out with such grand effect, while Mr. Howel, 
thus permitted to retire from active musical service, sat 
in his easy chair, and shouted sincere “ bravos.” Lydia 
played the harmonium in chapel on Sundays, and some- 
how about that time we got into the use of certain 
hymns with a strong salt flavour, which one could well 
understand had been famihar favourites at the sea-shore 
services and love-meetings near Conway. We had “ Give 
to the winds thy fears,” and “ Jesus, lover of my soul,” 
and ‘‘ Here on a narrow neck of land,” very often about 
that time. 

Yes, there was no mistake about it. The two were in 
the enchanted ground — aU the more enchanted, perhaps, 
because their near relationship and the easy rule of their 
mutual home, saved them from the necessity of those 
explanations and understandings which, if they come to 
love too soon, like an over-early spring to the buds, ripen 
but to hinder perfect growth. Under the circumstances, 
Tom could sit with Lydia through the evening, when 
she stayed at home, or wander with her over the hiUs, 
without any danger of being asked his intentions. 

I said I was ten years older than Lydia, and so I was 
eight-and-twenty, and knew all about it. Tom might 
seem free to make himself popular with aU the girls, and 
so he did, and no mistake, but it was a popularity which 
only gave a greater meaning to the faithfulness with 
which he returned to his little cousin. “Very fine to be 
her,” said the gossips, resuming their disparagement of 


126 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


her goodness now that the brighter bloom of her face and 
the added mirth in her laughter gave the he direct to 
their pitying surmises. I rather thought it was wonder- 
ful she kept her heart so humble and tender. Sunshine 
ripens, but it parches too. I had often heard girls’ frivo- 
lity and heartlessness excused because their heads were 
a httle turned, they were so spoilt ! and I had been ready 
to own there was something m that plea, for God has 
some lessons He can hsirdly teach us without the rod. 
But it vexed me to hear such excuse reversed, because 
one had escaped the peculiar temptation of her happy 
lot. I was not then reconciled to one of the hardest 
facts of human nature, that it has a strong mclination to 
wash black garments, and to defile white ones. 

Well, spriug ripened into summer, and summer 
faded into autumn, and the Howels began to emerge 
from their mourning garments, and Lydia appeared 
again with those pretty bits of bright pure colour that 
suited her so well. I fancy I can see those two now, as 
I saw them then, one breezy morning in the middle of 
October. Tom had to transact some business about six 
miles up the country, and Lydia was going with him for 
the sake of the drive. I met them in the Hopleigh road, 
just at that part where it dips into a hollow, and the 
great trees nearly meet over-head. They came along in 
the old-fashioned chaise, with the grey horse ; the scarlet 
knot in Lydia’s bonnet warming the clear, keen sunlight, 
that brightened the sere leaves, like a, happy smile on a 
faded face. Tom checked the horse a moment to let his 
cousm speak with me, and then they were off again. I 
stood still and watched them round the comer. I was 
not very lively, just then, but I remember I only thought 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


127 


it was a blessing to see happiness at all, and that we may 
enjoy our neighbour’s flowers if we can make up our 
minds to look at them over his hedge. Thank God I don’t 
think I envied them as I watched them round the 
corner. It was not very far off! 

Scarcely half an hour later, I returned along that 
road. There were a few farm-labourers hanging about, 
speaking to each other, as if something of interest was 
happening, though I knew it might be nothing more 
than the arrival of a few Southdowns. But just a-head, 

I saw the old-fashioned chaise, empty, a boy leading the 
grey horse, smoking and dusty. 

‘‘ The horse took fright,” a man told me. “ They met 
a travelling curcus, and some fellow blew a trumpet just 
as they passed, and that started it off. Mrs. Boulder’s 
son was there too in his Ught cart, and it was a miracle 
his horses didn’t run too, frisky corned beasts as they 
are. They say young IMiss set quite still and the gemmen 
tried to hold her, but the horse flew hke a wild cat ; and 
then the wheel turned on a stone, and over they went. 
Farmer Boulder, he went after them and picked up Miss, 
and they’ve took her home. She’s alive, and that’s all one 
can say. The young gemmen, they took him into 
the first cottage, and they do say they think he be dead 

I hastened on to Mallowe. There was a group of peo- 
ple about the gates of the old Red House, and the 
doors were wide open. A gipsy man with a basket of 
groundsel stood in the court-yard. Lydia had dealt with 
him for her canaries, which were singing at the tea- 
room window. The doctor stepped in just as I passed. 
A httle higher up the street, I saw gossiping Miss Vix, 
with her afternoon dress hastily put on, standing in 


128 


WHITE AS SNOW 


her portico, snug and satisfied, wringing her hands, and 
talking of “ awful Providence.” 

I hurried home, for business must be attended to, but 
I sent my mother up to the Howels’ to offer her services, 
and I had my shop shut up as soon as possible, and went 
off there myself. I found my mother sitting by the 
kitchen fire with the old servant ; it was the only fire in 
the sitting apartments which had not been let out. My 
mother told m-e she had not been of any use, but IVIrs. 
Howel came down to us, and begged her to stay through 
the night, it was a comfort to know she was there. ‘‘It 
was awful to think of Tom lying among strangers,” she 
said. “ They’d thought he was dead at first, poor fellow, 
but now they said he was comiug round finely. But 
Lydia — weU, the Lord’s will be done !” If you are a 
simpleton, you’d have said that Mrs. Howel seemed to 
take it very easily. She was not crying, hke the servant, 
nor sighing, hke my mother — she was calm. “ She 
showed more feeling over her story-books,” mother said, 
when she left us. “ Because there was nothing else to 
do, mother,” said I. 

“If she fives,” said the doctor, a day or two later — 
“ and she has a fine constitution — she will never stm off 
her couch again.” 

“ So long as you save her, doctor,” cried Owen Howel, 
springing up in a frenzy of hope from the chair where he 
had been sitting with his face buried in his hands, “ so 
long as you only save her !” 

In all their agony of fear and hope, the Howels did 
not forget their nephew. When I begged to be made 
useful, I was asked, would I go to see him ? and I went, 
and hlr. Howel went with me. Tom’s head had struck 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


129 


against a stone -when the chaise overturned, bnt the 
medical men said that the principal danger with him 
was the shock to the whole nervous system. He was so 
thoroughly unhinged that after one or two experiments, 
his uncle’s visits were forbidden as too exciting. I was 
still admitted with my books and tidings and messages, 
and I used to sit through whole evenings with him in the 
little whitewashed cottage chamber with the great nettle 
geranium at the window. He was to be kept as quiet 
and soothed as possible, the doctor said, but that was 
not to be done by hiding anything from him. If you 
don’t give an invahd all the truth, he is never sure 
whether you give him half or a quarter. I never hid 
anything about Lydia. When I first went he seemed 
quite sure she must die, as I was, too, at that time. 
And he spoke of his love for her just as frankly as he 
might if she were already dead ; and, though he cried 
bitterly, he did not seem rebelhous. The fact was, 
everything then was like a dream, and he, a weak, 
querulous invahd, finding particular comfort in his toast 
and tea, and shedding unchecked tears at the thought 
of a crushed girl shpping away from hfe and pain, was 
something quite apart from manly, w'^ilful Tom Howel 
singing hvely glees with Lydia in the old brown parlour. 
I ignorantly thought he was bearing the worst well ; 
but the worst was not then — that would be when the 
tenor voice should begin again, with no soprano to 
chime therewith ! 

Gradually Tom grew more and more himself — a sort 
of ghost of himself. The doctor said that it was neces- 
sary he should go away from all painful associations for 
a time, and an old friend of his father’s invited him to 
6 * 


130 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


winter in his house at Conway. Tom went away with- 
out seeing Lydia, without passing the old house. lie 
was still in the dream, except that hope was startling 
him into something like consciousness with the wild 
logic that, as Lydia had not died when the doctors had 
said she would, she might perfectly recover, though the 
doctors said she never could. 

I did not see Lydia herself till after Christmas. She 
was always told when I was in the house, and she used 
to send down dear little messages and apologies that 
they would not let her ask me to her room. And once 
or twice, by the old servant, she sent me secret en- 
treaties, that I would come as often as possible, and 
stay as long as I could, she was sure the change did her 
mamma good — and would I make some excuse to get 
her poor mamma to go out for a walk ? I did not find 
it so hard as Lydia’s knowledge of her mother’s love 
made her fear. Nor did Mrs. Howel talk over much of 
her sick daughter, and when she did she spoke quietly 
and cheerfully. And she scandahzed Miss Vix by taking 
a sincere interest in the fashion of her winter bonnet ; 
“ a heartless woman,” they called her. But Mks. Howel 
sat down and wrote out a receipt for mince pies to send 
to a young friend who was keeping her first married 
Christmas. “ She is just two years older than my Lydia,” 
she said, as she tmmed over the pen box to find a nib 
that would “ go easily.” “ Her mother was my favourite 
school-fellow, and she would have been at my wedding, 
only she was so near her confinement, and she died in 
my honeymoon. She was making a lace pincushion to 
be ready for our coming home, and they sent it to me 
just as she left it, half finished — ^I’ve got it now. You 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


I3I 

see the world goes round, and there is always somebody 
in the sunshine and somebody in the dark. But God is 
always in the same place, dear !” 

It was different with Mr. Howel. He did not neglect 
bis business, his energies were sometimes more bustling 
than ever. But there was always something in the back- 
ground. He would speak of Lydia suddenly, without 
anything leading to the subject ; he would tell instances 
of wonderful recoveries, but never in connection with his 
daughter. He gave one the idea of a man who has 
girded up his strength to go a certain distance, but will 
drop down disheartened when he finds that what he 
thought to be the goal is only a milestone on the course. 

I found Lydia quite of her mother’s spirit. By the 
time I saw her aU the wrenched disfigurement of torture 
had passed away. She might be whiter and thinner ; 
she looked like one of the gathered hhes we see in the 
pictures of the saints ; beautiful, not quickly fading, but 
stiU — gathered! She did not say a word about the 
doom that she knew had passed upon her. But she was 
drawing about her aU the many httle interests and em- 
ployments possible for her condition. She knew it was 
no temporary state. We may smile at the bare discom- 
fort of a hotel where you pass but one night, but if we 
have to stay there, the sooner we make it homely the 
better. Idleness and indifference are dangerous tenants, 
once admitted, they won’t always accept notice to quit 
just when you please. So Lydia already had her piUow 
lace, and her magazines, and she made me promise I 
would teach her chess. She was not strong enough 
yet to make a real use of these things, but she was get- 
ting them about her — a prospect to look forward to. 


132 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


Slie told me they were always hearing from Tom, and he 
was growing quite strong and well, and she was so glad 
they had let her write a line or two to him, herself, that 
very morning for the first time. Of course she had 
“ always sent messages. But messages seem like tele- 
grams, you know, they’ve been repeated over by other 
people, and there’s always something left out at last. 
But a letter is next to a spoken word, and if it 
isn’t as good in some ways, it is better in one, you can 
get it out whenever you like and read it over again. 
Isn’t it a queer sensation to feel that your letter has just 
reached somebody ever so far away, and has put you 
into their minds. It is always so pleasant to be re- 
membered ! It would not be so bitter to part from one’s 
dearest friend, never to hear of each other again, only that 
we feel while we are mortal new impressions will come, 
and though the old ones may stay, they will grow very 
faint. That is why it is more soothing to think of fiiends 
in heaven than of friends abroad ; we feel sure that the 
perfect can never forget. And yet, Kuth dear, I think the 
difference is all in our fancy, for I believe that even in 
this world people do never really forget. You may put 
fresh wax over an old seal, but the old seal is stiU under- 
neath for all that. But it isn’t worth while to think about 
such things, dear ; you have something better to do.” 

It was in the very early spring — the same time of year 
as he first came to MaUowe — that Tom Howel returned 
to his uncle’s house. He came in by the evening coach, 
and his uncle met him, and the two walked up the High 
Street together, just as the candles were being ht in the 
parlours behind the shops, and all the famihes were sit- 
ting down together to tea. 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


133 


“ I had the table set in Lydia’s room,” said Mrs. 
Howel, teUing us her simple stoiy, “ for we thought it 
was best he should come there at once ; Lyddy said so. 
And she got me to trim a piece of lace round her pillow. 
‘ You know, mamma,’ says she, ‘ it isn’t a sick-bed, it’s 
only a couch 1’ And while I was down in the kitchen, 
seeing after thmgs, Sally came in, and said, ‘ Miss has 
asked me to put her little dressing-case beside her sofa, 
and she is turning over her coral necklace and lockets, 
and as I came out of the room, mum, she was actually 
fastening it on.’ Sally thought it might be a good sign, 
poor lass, but when I w^ent up-stairs the coral necklace 
was off again, and shut up in the case, and she had only 
put on a broad blue ribbon, with a httle old-fashioned 
silver pendant, that she used to wear when she was a 
child, but which I hadn’t seen for years. She kept on 
talkmg about all sorts of httle things till we heard them 
come m, and Tom came running up-stairs. She seemed 
to give a sort of little shudder ; you see she had not 
been used to anybody moving quickly lately, nor indeed 
to anybody but elderly people, except when you have 
looked in. And Tom rather rushed in, and made towards 
her, and she put out her hands with a little cry, almost 
as if to hold him back. But, instead, her two hands 
went into both of his, and he stooped down and kissed 
her. There was quite a gush of fresh air came in with 
them ; and Tom looked so fresh and healthy, that she 
made him stand behind the Hght that she might see him 
well. And he sat down on the hassock beside her to 
take his tea, and she showed him the lace-working pillow, 
and the httle desk she had written her letters on, which 
one of her father’s men had planned for her. Tom was 


134 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


full of talk at first, but presently he got quiet, and then 
said he had better go to his room and look after his un- 
packing. But when I went into the passage, about half 
an hour after, I found out he had gone off in the dark, 
for there was his candlestick standing on the table. So 
I went to his door and knocked once or twice, but he 
did not answer, and I took leave and went in. And 
there he was, with his face smothered down in the bed- 
clothes, and I could hear him sobbing in the dark. And 
I sat down on the bed, and thought to comfort him, but 
I just cried too, the first time I’d ever joined in a cij 
over poor Lyddy. For IMr. Howel would think the 
world was coming to an end if I broke down. I’m afraid 
the poor lad has got it into his head he might have taken 
more care of her, for over and over again he kept say- 
ing, ‘ I wish that it had been me, — and that it had killed 
me !’ I told him she did not suffer very much now, and 
that we would all be very happy together, and that they 
are often the happiest homes which have one great sin- 
less sorrow in them. But I would not let him come 
down to supper. I told Lyddy he was tired and had 
gone to bed ; but I think she guessed aU about it. It 
quite startled me ; it was worse than his uncle had been, 
though he is her own father. No doubt, though the 
doctors say he is quite well again, he is still shaken-hke, 
and not fit for shocks. You know when you knock a 
china plate against something, it mayn’t seem damaged, 
but it’s not safe to wash it in hot water.” 

Tom at once took his old place at his uncle’s side ; and 
he had not come home too soon, for though the spring 
days grew brighter and warmer, ]\Ir. Howel became 
gradually later in the morning and wearied earlier in the 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


135 


afternoon. I fancy that one or two good contracts had 
shpped through his fingers in the course of that winter. 
Tom, however apphed himself steadily to business. Was 
he really graver and more silent, or did our consciousness 
of his great sorrow cast its own shadow over him ? In 
those early days . it was hard to say. He did not look 
changed ; he was as dashingly handsome as ever, but 
yet there was a something which wrought into the man- 
ner of his respectful workmen, and his frankly sympathetic 
girl-acquaintances — just that difference which one detects 
between a crowd’s huzzas for a successful prince, and its 
cheers for a defeated patriot. Those who are nearest to 
a secret are often the last to find it out, and I think every- 
body in the place understood more than Mr. and Mrs. 
Howel themselves. To them the two seemed such 
children, and so nearly related, too — “ it was only hkely 
they should love each other,” Mrs. Howel would have 
said, quite innocently. She had been a woman of thirty- 
two when “Howel” made her his definite offer, and 
married her six months after ; and as our own experience 
is very apt to foreshadow another’s future, doubtless in 
her maternal dreams she had seen Lydia — ^not quite 
thirty-two, perhaps, but still not just yet — admired by 
some substantial young swain, whose interview with 
“ Howel ” in the counting-house would be followed by an 
elysium of purchases at the mercer’s and upholsterer’s. 
An honest motherly romance ! But it had quite blinded 
her to the possibility of Love slipping in unawares, so that 
when he had actually done so, she did not recognise him. 
Was it better or worse for those two that it was so ? I 
don’t know that it mattered much either way. For some 
people, whatever happens is good, and for others the re- 


136 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


verse. (Circumstances depend most on the soil where 
they are planted. } 

No sound of glee-singing through the Howels’ open 
windows that summer-time. Tom always spent his 
evenings . at home ; he found a good deal of exercise in 
the course of business, and he did not seek another 
companion to wander with him on the sunny uplands 
and scented lanes where he had walked with Lydia. One 
or two families put forth kindly feelers of invitation 
towards him, but his meny visitings and hght-hearted 
pleasure-seeking plans seemed all done. And yet, as I 
said before, the change showed less in himself than in the 
mere outward conditions of his hfe. One must not 
measure the depth of sufiering by the readiness with 
which the mourner sinks into the pallor and silence con- 
sistent with his case. You must remember the strength 
of the back as well as the weight of the burden. The 
strong man is convalescent two days after the doctor 
said he would die, and the face that has the habit of - 
smiles will still smile through its tears ! 

The sight of Tom Howel, left alone in the pride of his 
strong young beauty, added pathos to our thoughts of 
Lydia, on the couch whence she would never rise. On 
Sunday afternoons, when the High Street was in a little 
bustle with the dispersing schools and Bible-classes, giddy 
faces would grow serious as they looked up at the bright 
windows of the old Eed House, and a touch of genuine 
romance would thrill through many a heedless courtship, 
at the thought of the two within, so closely joined, and 
yet so sternly parted. We knew they were alone together, 
for of late Mr. and Mrs. Howel had taken to attend ser- 
vice in the afternoon instead of the morning. “ Some- 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


137 


times lie reads to lier, and sometimes they talk,” gossiped 
the servant Sally ; ‘‘ and sometimes they don’t even say 
much, and once or twice when I’ve been about the room, 
I’ve seen her stealing looks at him as if she pitied him. 
It’s odd, it is ; you’d always think that she fancied he 
had got the worst of it.” 

Strength came back — all the strength that would ever 
come. And, Lydia learned chess, and grew to excel in 
piUow-lace. Also, she got my library catalogue, and drew 
up the plan of a fine course of study ; but that she never 
carried out. “ After aU, I hke to feel free to read the 
books that friends recommend to me,” she said apolo- 
getically, “ and those that suit me best, and do me most 
good, are just those that one can’t classify at aU. I should 
think books are hke scenery, dear. One reads standard 
authors much as one may go to admire a mountain-pass 
or a beautiful bay, and may find them very grand and 
dehghtful, but still be glad to get back to the quiet lanes 
and field-paths, or flat beach, where the beauty looks at 
you as if it loved you too well to care for your admira- 
ti9n. Tom says something like that. Tom has been to 
almost every weU-known place in Wales, — Snowdon and 
Cader-Idris and Llangollen, — ^but he says he never saw 
anything he cared for like the level sands before his 
father’s house, with the one great black rock on the left, 
just far enough out for the high tide to make it an island. 
I told him that was because it was his home. But he 
says no. For he once stayed a week or two at a part of 
the coast where nobody sees any beauty at all, the rocks 
are so low and ordinary, and no fine scenery behind 
them. And Tom says he took a walk about sunset, and 
came to a mass of low black rocks, with the waves sob- 


138 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


bing over a broken boat that had been dashed among 
them. And the sun was just sinking in the sea, and 
against the glory he could ^e another boat far out. Tom 
says he has never forgotten that place, and he cannot 
think why. He told me about it one evening last sum- 
mer — the sunset brought it into his mind. I think he re- 
members because of the boats. They meant something 
more, and Tom felt that without knowing it. I think 
you always feel attracted to anything that you feel has a 
meaning, whether or no you can make it out. I remem- 
ber a picture I once saw of a dead bird. Everybody 
thought a great deal of it, because it was so beautifully 
done, that you might fancy you saw the breeze stirring the 
poor feathers. But that was not why I cared for it. 
Close to the bird there was a gathered sprig of holly, 
and a little further off there was a broken bit of earthen- 
ware. I have made ever so many meanings to that pic- 
ture, and I can’t think which the artist intended.” 

“ Most likely none of them Lydia,” I said. ‘‘ Perhaps 
he put in the holly and the chip merely to see how he 
could paint flowers and still life. But whatever meaning 
suited you best was the right one for you. And the 
painter was only the greater genius if he gave it to you 
unconsciously, just honestly trying to do his best, and 
thinking very little of it ! ” 

But Lj^dia managed to do more than to read and 
amuse herself with pretty trifles. It was wonderful what 
a many httle household duties she drew towards her 
couch. At first, they let her do them, thmldng it gave 
her pleasure, and did her good ; but by-and-by she did 
them because it became natural that she should do them, 
and because she did them better than anybody else. 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


139 


Theirs did really appear a very happy home. Though 
Mr. Howel had become an old man in those few months, 
still he was cheerful — and hopeful. “ I wish he was not,” 
Lydia one day whispered, after he had been indulging in 
very merry sallies. “ I wish I heard him laughing like 
that, and yet knew that he believed I shall never-never 
— ” and only the sweet soft eyes finished the sentence. 
Mrs. Howel was as cheery and bustling as of old. It’s 
bad enough for her to be shut up for ever with us at our 
best,” she said, “so we needn’t make it worse by dol- 
drlims ! ” But over and again, when I made one of their 
family circle, I saw Lydia’s pitiful yearning glance towards 
Tom. 

“Kuth,” she said, “it is dreadful to find what sel- 
fishness and arrogance gets into our very thanksgiv- 
ings.” 

“Yes,” I answered, “if they are made on the pattern 
of the Pharisee’s, ‘ Lord I thank Thee that I am not as 
other men are.’ ” 

“ Somehow we seem to discover our blessings by the 
help of others’ trials,” she went on, musingly. “ I can’t 
help being thankful that it is I who am laid up instead 
of Tom. He has so much the worst of it, I think, poor 
fellow.” 

“ You wouldn’t think so if you were in his place,” I 
observed. 

“ I don’t know,” she said, picking at the edging of her 
pillow. “ I should be quite happy as I am if it were not 
for thinking of poor Tom. It is very well now, perhaps ; 
but it will be awfully hard for him some day.” 

“ Well, Lydia,” I remonstrated, “ have you not some- 
thing to suffer too ? and yet you own you are happy.” 


140 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


“ Oh, but that’s different,” she answered ; “ and besides 
I’m a woman ! ” 

Which wasn’t a logical answer, as we understand 
logic. But some of us get on faster with our lessons, 
and begin to puzzle out the first fines of pages that the 
rest of us will only turn over in heaven. 

I stayed there that evening till they were all gathered 
in the little upper room that had grown so cheerful, 
brave ]Mrs. Howel presidmg over the shining tea-pot, 
her husband in the easy chair, reading aloud the comic 
column of the county paper, and Tom sitting in his ustial 
corner beside the couch where Lydia lay. Then I went 
on to call upon Miss Vix, who was ruefully glad to see 
me, because “ it’s nice to have somebody to speak to, my 
dear. There’s the dressmaker promised me my silk dress 
last night, and it’s never come home yet, and I believe 
she has put it off to go on with the apothecary’s daughters’ 
winter dresses that they want to have ready for the 
Boulders’ party. IVIrs. Boulder has not invited me. Of 
course, I should not have gone if she had ; for, as every- 
body knows, my papa was an officer in the army, while, 
though the Boulders are very decent people, still they’re 
only tenant-farmers ; and though I shouldn’t wish to be 
at aU proud, yet there are proper distinctions which ought 
to be kept up. But it would have been only civil for 
them to give me the refusal. And there’s my servant 
going — going to another place for just a pound more 
wages, which I stood out I wouldn’t give her. And what 
do you think I’ve heard she has the impudence to say 1 — 
that she only asked for a rise, because she knew she 
wouldn’t get it, and that she’d have stayed on cheerfully 
but for my temper. My temper ! Me, that is as meek 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


I4I 

as a lamb ! And she’s chief friend with the parlour-maid 
at the house where our curate lodges, so one don’t know 
what reports may go round, though I don’t suppose he’d 
demean himself to gossip with his servant. All, it’s a 
miserable world. Miss Garrett ! ” 

“Well, Miss Vix,” I said, “there are a good many 
thorns in every wood, but there are blackberries too, 
and the very brambles bear roses. But it is not those 
who get the worst scratched who cry the loudest.” 

“ I know who you are thinking about,” she answered. 
“You have just come from the Howels. You must 
please to remember that Lydia is now set aside from the 
struggle of hfe. She is just made into a martyr, or a 
saint, or something of that sort. It is very easy to be 
good when everybody is petting and patting us, body 
and soul, as tenderly as if we were a sick canary. Look 
at her father and mother — very slaves to her. Look at 
that fine young man wasting his life for her sake. Look 
at her very glances, watched and understood plainer than 
any other body’s spoken wishes. I tell you what. Miss 
Garrett, a so-called great affliction like hers is not half 
as trying as the wear and tear of every-day existence.” 

.“Put it in a simpler way. Miss Vix,” I said: “say 
it is better to be chastened by God than tormented by 
ourselves. There is balm on the point of his sword, 
and poison on the points of our pins.” 

The next change in the Howels’ household was the 
mother’s death. She did not die suddenly, but she was 
not ailing very long, and none thought seriously. It 
was very sad for her husband and her daughter. Mr. 
Howel was quite broken up by this last blow. His love 
had come to him late in life, but he could not remember 


142 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


how he had lived without his wife. He was one of those 
who cannot understand that the machinery of life must 
go on as best it can, although the main spring is broken. 
He could not reflect what a dreadful world it would be 
if nobody was hard-hearted enough to give directions for 
funerals, and such other necessary and decent ceremo- 
nies. He was one of those who are inclined to sit down 
and say “that nothing* is any matter any more.” Only 
now he had gone past saying so, and only laid his poor 
old white head (such a brave iron-grey head but such a 
short time before) on his trembling withered hands, and 
got up and sat down just when and where Tom told 
him, and everybody said what a blessing Tom was. 

I could not be with Lydia at that time as much as I 
should have liked. Her father was always in the room, 
sitting in the corner, silent, and there was something in 
his silence which silenced everybody else. Often and 
often that 'winter as I passed the Red House on Sunday 
afternoon, and saw the flrelight flickering on the ceiling, 
and sometimes a man’s shadow waving up and down, I 
gave that pitiful thought for Lydia, which I think God 
accepts as a prayer. It must have been so dreary ! For 
Mrs. Howel had become not only the guide and ruler, 
but the life and hght of the house. And gradually, 
gradually, there crept over it a sense of discomfoit, an 
air of neglect. It was hke a house 'without a woman in 
it. The servants might be faithful, but between the 
honestest hired service and the devotion of love there is 
much such a difference as between the warmth of a 
glove and the comfort of a clasping hand. And Lydia 
knew it aU the while, and the sting of it was that she 
could not help it, nor had she any kind maiden aunt, or 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


143 


accommodating female cousin whom she could call to 
the rescue. She could only he still and give httle gentle 
hints and suggestions, whose very gentleness made the 
poor servants so nervously eager to obey, that they 
doubled the disaster of failure and defeat. Personally 
Lydia lost an untold treasure in her mother, but in the 
consciousness of her mother’s gain, she would have ac- 
cepted that loss if she could have supphed it to the 
others. It was not her own loneliness — no, nor the en- 
durance of the unintentional neglects and imsympathetic 
kindnesses which befall an invahd who is not first in her 
nurse’s thoughts, which made those new shadowy hol- 
lows about her face, and shed over it that wan look of 
careworn sohcitude, which aU the first agony of pain and 
sorrow had failed to give. Not that Lydia ever lost her 
cheerfulness, but just for a time her cheerfulness lost its 
spontaneity. 

]Mr. Howel gradually sank into a state so low and 
clouded that his presence in his daughter’s room became 
but a cipher, and I felt it to be no longer an intrusion 
upon his grief to go and sit with her there. He had long 
been unable to join id conversation ; he now ceased to 
attempt it, though the kindly natoe of the man still 
hved in his hospitable pressing upon me the few addled 
dainties of their tea-table, and inquiriug after my moth- 
er’s health and our general prosperity, at least six times 
during each of my visits. Despite the feeble intensity 
with which he watched his daughter, and his agitation 
when he knew her to be suffering, or imagined any 
change for the worse, he generally spoke to her with a 
kind of peevish deference, as if he felt that he had 
wronged her by succumbmg to his sorrows, and some- 


144 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


what resented the patience with which she bore his 
weakness. He got a habit of wandering in and out of 
the room, and of looking into cupboards, though in reply 
to Lydia’s cheerful, ‘‘What are you seeking, papa? 
Perhaps I can teU you where it is,’’ he would always 
answer, “Nothing at aU, nothing at all.” After the 
candles were lit, however, he generally sat stiU, gazing 
into the fire, apparently quite unaware of anything about 
him ; and it was when he was in this state that I would 
draw my chair close to Lydia’s couch, and we would 
snatch a little confidential conversation. 

I noticed that Tom did not always come in as early as 
he used. One or two evenings that I stayed late he had 
not come in when I left, and whenever he did arrive in 
good time, there seemed a weight hanging upon him, 
very different to his old buoyancy". Was it only the 
heavy steps of Time, burdened with responsibility, tread- 
ing down his spirits ? Alas, there were dreary whispers 
about Tom stealing through MaUowe. I will do human 
nature the justice to say, that, for once, nobody seemed 
to rejoice in the evil, as human nature is so prone to do. 
At first it was hard to teU what the whispers were, they 
were so ambiguous. Some sighed, and said, “he was 
not very well others shook their heads, and spoke of 
“not quite right;” and the rest asked, “What could 
anybody expect ?” And in the meantime a mildew crept 
over his fresh manly beauty, and the sea breezes died 
out of his hair, and his quarterdeck step changed to a 
slow, dull saunter. But what many must have suspected, 
nobody said, until one bleak March evening one of the 
young Boulders (the same one who had raised Tom 
senseless from the accident in the Hopleigh road) found 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


145 


liim in a denser senselessness and a deeper danger in 
the foul gutter of a bye-lane not far from the Red House. 
Mr. Boulder lifted him up, and led him home, screening 
his shame as best he might from the flaring lights and 
sharp eyes of a market night in the High Street. 

It must have been awful. ]\Ir. Boulder took him straight 
to his own room. But there could be no concealment 
from the servants who admitted them. And it was 
necessary that Lydia should know something of the 
truth, or what wild fancies would haunt and torture her 
utter helplessness ! Mr. Boulder went to her, and told 
her. He was a gentle sensitive giant of a man, and I 
am sure he would sooner have lain on the rack than 
have gone through that task. “ I do hope she will believe 
I did everything as much for the best as I know how,” 
he said afterwards, which let me know that Lydia’s 
womanhood had for once got the better of her right- 
wiseness, and caused her at first to turn fiercely upon 
the hand that had dared to succour her darling in his 
degradation. The two hid it from the poor old uncle, or 
they fancied they did, f6r they staved off the reiterated 
question, “ What is the matter with Tom ?” and Mr. 
Boulder stayed with the fallen man through the night, 
and Lydia kept her lonely vigil in her distant chamber, 
having sent the terrified servant girls to bed. “ I went 
to her once or twice,” said Mr. Boulder, “for she wfisn’t 
angry with me after the first minute. ‘ Ah, sir,’ she said 
once, ‘ when my mother was dying, and I could not go 
to her, it was not as hard as now !’ And when I went 
to tell her that he was coming round, and it would soon 
be all right — for really I’d feared it might be something 
more than di’ink, — she bade me tell him, ‘not to fret, 
7 


146 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


she knew it wasn’t his fault, and they would take care 
that things were managed differently in future, but not 
to fret, nor let himself feel disgusted with himself.’ I 
did have a hard time with him, sure enough,” added 
honest Mr. Boulder, “ he did not seem to rouse to any 
feeling, till I di’ew up the blind and let in the dawn, and 
then he burst out crying hke a child, poor fellow.” 

Not one word did Lydia say to me of her cousin’s 
humiliation, when next she saw me, though she looked 
firmly in my face, and I am sure felt that I knew it all. 
But in the course of conversation, she told me that Tom 
was not at all well, and that she had always been sure 
that his whole nervous system had been quite upset by 
the accident which ended her own active part in the 
world. I was informed that Tom’s life since had been a 
great mistake, and that in his affectionate sympathy for 
her he had shut himseff too much from healthy external 
influences and interests. That she was very much to 
blame, for not interfering before — it was just her selfish- 
ness, and I must remember she had even spoken on the 
subject, and yet had let it go on. She had been talking 
to Tom about it now, and he reaUy was so iU that he 
was glad to hsten to advice. And he had promised her 
that he would go out when he was invited, and that he 
would sometimes ask friends of his own to pass a cheer- 
ful evening vsdth him in the tea-room, and she had given 
the girls orders to brighten it up, — perhaps I would just 
look in and see if they had done so tolerably well. 

I do not deny that there was some foundation for her 
excuses for Tom. But I knew what all this was for her. 
O, it is very, very hard when we ourselves must open the 
door to let our nearest and dearest pass out where we 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


147 


cannot follow. And if it had been her, she would not 
have gone — she would not have needed to go ! “ O, but 

that is different, and besides I’m a woman.” Well, 
thank God, if that explanation kept the bitterness quite 
out of her heart. For really I don’t know whether it is 
not better to have one’s idol shivered downright than 
with just a nasty httle crack in it, so that you go on try- 
ing to think it is as good as before, while all the while 
you know it isn’t ! But Lydia was one of those women 
whose idols never are shivered, because they’ll pick them 
up if they’re in a thousand pieces, and put them together 
again, and gild them over thicker than ever, so that you 
won’t see the joinings. And they’ll persuade themselves 
that they were bom expressly to do that patching-up. For 
my ovm part. I’ll never beheve but that some men are 
better and truer than any woman, and out of justice to 
them, I feel it to be my bounden duty to come down 
upon the defaulters pretty smartly ! But then Edward 
says that justice is my forte, and I think some other peo- 
ple think so, and don’t hke me any better for it. Never- 
theless I could tell them that I had been made a fool of 
once or twice in my time, but I prefer to keep my 
own counsel ! 

And so Tom Howel sorrowfully and shyly returned to 
our quiet village society. There were not wanting good 
people to hold out a kindly hand to one who had been 
really sore smitten in life. And gradually his down- 
cast face brightened, and some of the old dash came 
back to his mien and step. And there used to be httle 
glee parties at the apothecary’s. And Tom’s fine tenor 
was as good as ever, once the rust wore off, and the 
Webster girls had such beautiful voices, aU three of 


148 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


them, but IMinnie’s, the youngest, was best of all. And 
Minnie had bright hair and curls. And Minnie had blue 
eyes. And without any painful resemblance, Minnie was 
like a bright memory of Lydia Howel. And when Tom 
began to go to tea at the apothecary’s of a Sunday, and 
to walk out with the girls and their brother — the two 
elder girls and young Webster in front, and Tom and 
klinnie behind — ^then we all felt that in the new love was 
embalmed the relics of the old one. But oh, why didn’t 
he try to match Lydia’s heart and soul, instead of her 
eyes and hair ? 

“ Happy the wooing that’s not long a doing,” says an 
old proverb, and it is not bad advice in a world full of 
commonplace people. Tom Howel was not very long a- 
wooing Minnie Webster, and between their “regular 
engagement” — which was duly known to the whole 
place next day — and their marriage, no longer time 
elapsed than sufficed for the plenishing of a pretty little 
house in a new terrace at the back of the High Street. 
And Lydia certainly contributed her share. There were 
a half dozen tidys of her own work, and a beautiful 
screen, and a set of knitted bedroom curtains, and a pair 
of sofa-cushions. “ They have aU been made since our 
accident,” Lydia softly whispered to me. “ Up-stairs I 
have some more things that I made before. I could not 
give them. I don’t think it would be right. One doesn’t 
believe in good luck and bad luck, you know. But still 
one doesn’t hke to do things that may seem unlucky, 
dear.” 

I don’t want to censure Minnie Webster. She knew 
she would never have been Tom Howel’s wife if the grey 
horse had not started off on that bright October mom- 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


149 


ing. It is one tiling to be a second love when the first 
love has been laid down — sadly enough, perhaps, but 
voluntarily — ^like the abandoned gewgaws of a child who 
has grown too wise to wear anything but pure gold and 
real gems. It is' another thing to be a second love when 
God has taken the first love to Himself, and the consol- 
ing affection steals to the door of the sepulchre, and 
sits down there, and guards the poor silent dust within. 
And it is yet another thing when the first love is still 
beating warm behind some impassable bar of circum- 
'^tance, and the second love is only second-best — what 
^can be got, instead of what is wanted. Doubtless Minnie 
felt herself something like the travelling companions to 
whom we tuim with forced cheerful commonplaces, while 
our hearts are bleeding with the severance from the kith 
and kin whom we left sobbing on the railway platform. 
Yet I tliink I know some women who would have risen 
equal to the trial, who, loving this man, would not have 
grudged to give their whole hfe only to stanch his wound, 
and who in the end would have won their exceeding great 
reward. But we can scarcely blame a girl because she 
has not in her the stuff which makes heroines and saints. 
One can understand that it might give klinnie a little 
pang when she knew her lover left her earher than usual 
to have time for a talk with Lydia. But it was neither 
kindly nor wise of her to pout and flout, and shed fretful 
tears, and say peevish words. Surely she would not 
have loved Tom better if he had not felt one tender 
regret for the heart that had so blamelessly lost him ! 
Perhaps, on his part, he ought to have been strong 
enough to dedicate all his warm young life to a sorrow- 
ful devotion, but that w’ould have cost her his courtship 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


150 

altogether, and besides this very 'w'eakness, this pititul 
struggle between soul and body, would have been bis 
strongest claim on the patient and tender loving-kind- 
ness of one of those dear fools of women who think 
themselves a cheap ransom for a man’s happiness. Ye 
men, good men, great men, with the best of wives, for 
what do you think they love you most ? For the triumph 
that they exaggerate, for the praises that they never 
think warm enough, for all the blessings which they 
always will maintain are only what you deserve ? Delu- 
sion ! Eather for some weakness that you have forgot- 
ten — for the misfortune that made one part of your way 
so rough that you have been maimed ever since — for the 
temi)tation that beset you so closely, that your breath 
came hard and fast, and you won a very bare victory at 
last. But there are nice pretty girls whose hearts beat 
when they hear of such things, much like a schoolboy’s 
when he reads of Trafalgar or Waterloo. They would 
like to be the devoted heroine, as he would hke to be the 
general. They feel sure they could be, if an unappre- 
ciative world would let them at once jump into their ap- 
propriate places, without insisting on such a mean, 
pointless, painful roundabout course of discipline. And 
so in disgust, the young lady marries the man who has 
the most money, and the schoolboy takes to the counter. 
And weU for them that they do so. Better for IMinnie 
Webster had she never put her hand to a romance that 
was too much for her. 

They were married in the height of summer-time. Mr, 
Howel was far too weak and doited to be present at the 
ceremony, and the young bridegroom was alone among 
the bride’s kindred and townsfolk. Before they went off 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 151 

for their honeymoon, Tom wanted to drive round to the 
old Ked House. 

“ They are all of. my people that I have in the world,” 
he pleaded, “ and it is not their fault they are not here 
to greet you to-day.” 

“ But I never heard of such a thing !” pouted Minnie. 
“ What wouldn’t it make people say ? They oughtn’t to 
expect it, Tom.” 

“ They don’t expect it,” he said, very quietly. 

I was in hopes Minnie’s was but a httle involuntary 
spurt of opposition, and that she would retract it, with 
a loving penitence that would more than make amends. 
What possible victories there v/ere in her power ! With- 
out disturbing the old love, she might have won a greater 
and a purer, which should have enclosed and kept it, 
hke the lichens we see in crystals. But Minnie sat silent 
by her bridegi'oom with a- dry flush on her cheek and a 
tremor about her mouth. And they did not drive 
round to the old Red House. 

I went there on my way from the wedding breakfast. 
There was an attempt at keeping festival. A bouquet 
of white roses on Lydia’s table, her father in his best 
attire, and she herself in a fair white dress, with her 
delicate hands keeping hohday idleness. It struck me 
that she w^as really on a higher level of happiness than the 
pretty excited little bride, and I thought was there some- 
thing in Miss Vix’s old excuse “ that a so-called great 
aflliction is not half as trying as the wear and tear of 
everyday existence ? ” But then, how if the person were 
reversed ? If it was l^Iinnie lying here, crushed under 
stern necessity, broken, deserted — and Lydia there, 
happy, favoured, with life bright and wide before her — 


152 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


how then ? And I felt that then there would have been 
a sobbing frenzied rebel in the sick-room, and thither 
would have come a gentle, soothing woman, saying, by a 
thousand sweet ministries, “ I have not taken your place. 
Nobody ever wiU. But for his own sake let him love 
me as well as he can, and we will aU be as happy as we 
may.” Ah, if one plays their own part nobly, wo have 
httle reason to whisper that perhaps that is the only 
part they can play at aU ! 

Mr . and Mrs. Tom Howel came back from their trip 
to Conway. I wonder if he took Minnie to look for the 
low rocks with the broken boat among them ? Perhaps 
he went alone. But the broken boat would have rotted 
aw^ay by that time, and there might be no ship sailing 
out to sea, and no sunset in the sky. Perhaps he could 
not even find the spot. But the two came back duly 
and settled down. 

Nobody knew if it was dull in the old Bed House. 
Lydia never said so. Lydia never looked so. It was 
very, very seldom that Tom and his wife spent an even- 
ing with her. Old Mr. Howel was very feeble and child- 
ish now, and sometimes did not remember that his wife 
was dead, and used to ask where she was, and when she 
was coming back, to which Lydia always answered 
brightly, that “ mamma had only gone a httle way and 
we shall see her again presently,” whereupon the poor 
old man would sometimes mutter to himself that they 
had better keep the tea waiting a while, and Lydia 
would know what was in his head, when he refused to 
finish up the toast, and kept the leavings carefully on 
the monkey before the fire. ^Irs. Tom declared that all 
this made her dreadfully nervous, and that in Tom’s in- 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


153 


terest and her own, she must take care oi herself. So 
Tom was obhged to be satisfied with running up to his 
cousin’s room whenever business brought him to the 
office . Ml'S. Tom guessed at that, but she never made a 
safe and soothing outlet for his feelings by inquiring 
after Lydia. And if he brought forward the subject she 
sdenced him by tiffish, shrinking replies. And yet she 
felt herself wronged by his silence. 

At last Air. Howel died — died the same week that 
Tom’s first baby was bom. It was a boy, and it was 
christened Owen. It had four successors — another boy 
and three girls. The second boy was Tom, and the 
girls were Alinnie, Sara, and Annie, after the mother and 
the maternal aunts. No Lydia, not even in a second 
name, though that title was the paternal grandaunt’s as 
well as hers, who, as Airs. Tom often remarked, “ seemed 
such a distant relation now — cousin ship was scarcely 
any relation at all — once the heads of the families were 
gone.” 

Air. Howel had left Lydia his funded property, and 
Tom the business and some working capital. Neither 
share was worth as much as had once seemed likely. 
Lydia’s included the house, reserving to Tom a right in 
the timber-yard and business premises. Her income 
was very slender, but sufficient to let her keep on the 
old servant, and a young girl as a more personal attend- 
ant. And any stranger coming to AlaUowe must have 
'wondered who this Aliss Howel could be, of whom he 
heard so much and yet never saw. For Miss Howel 
was represented by some thoughtful gift at every wed- 
ding, by some godchild in every family — except among 
that group of children to whom her gentle heart must 


154 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


especially have yearned. Our stranger would have 
heard people, speaking of their troubles, say that “ they 
felt more resigned after they had talked it over with 
JVIiss Howell.” And yet when any blessing befell a 
household, there was always a friendly competition as to 
“who should go and tell Miss Howel.” She was not 
lonely. I remember she looked at me one day, and 
laughingly said, “ she was always deep in somebody’s joys 
or sorrows. It was only almost too exciting.” But yet 
there must have been times, early mornings, wet evenings, 
wakeful nights, when there would come upon her a 
sense of sohtude. Human nature is not ethereal enough 
to be quite satisfied with being a beneficent fairy, or even 
a good angel. If Tom might have come in and out 
familiarly, and told her aU the healthy outer-world news, 
emiched by that undercurrent of consciousness that al- 
ways flows between old friends — if his wife would have 
brought her work, and given her a share in her anxieties 
and happiness, and have gathered the children about 
her, and let her have some loviug rights over these little 
hearts with her own blood beating in them ! But Min- 
nie Howel could not do this. She shut up her dishke to 
Lydia, till it curdled into hatred, and stood like a cold 
stone between herself and her husband. She had mar- 
ried Tom with her eyes open, but now she felt the old 
story like a bitter personal wrong. She had not stamped 
it out, as perhaps she had hoped to do, she had not 
written another over it as a nobler woman would uncon- 
sciously have done. But she had worn her own heart 
out mth it, — and it wasn’t a heart warranted to wear 
long or well ! 

There came bad times and an opposition builder to 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


155 


Mallowe. Tom lost money and prestige. Mrs. Tom, 
with a very bad grace, wore her old dresses and bought 
no new ones. The children were sent to a cheaper 
school. Lydia heard rumors among her visitors. She 
saw more than rumors in poor Tom’s careful, broken- 
hearted looks. And at last she sent for her cousin, and 
told him she wanted to give up the Bed House. It was 
too large and dreary for a single sick woman, she should 
prefer cheerful lodgings at the other end of the ■vullage, 
nearer to most of her friends. But she would rather not 
sell the house, — “ it is an old family property, isn’t it, 

Tom ? ” — so if it would suit him to hve in it He 

might sell his own nice, new, fashionable little box to the 
officer of the inland revenue, who was looking for one, as 
he was about to marry. No, she shouldn’t take any 
rent, — wouldn’t the house be Tom’s own when she was 
gone ? — but, as of course, he wouldn’t wish to be under 
any obligation to her, he might pay her whatever was 
required for her lodgings, — she scarcely knew whether 
she might not be making a very good bargain. 

“ But can’t you stay here, if we come ? ” said Tom. 
Poor fellow, he was a father, and ruin had stared him so 
out of countenance, that you must not blame him for 
catching at the offered rescue, although his rash propo- 
sal divulged that he had some idea of the real motive for 
the change. And was it his pride interfered, or a nobler 
wish to give her a good excuse to accept this compromise, 
that he went on ? “If you find it dull now, it will be 
hvely enough with the five children.” 

“ Didn’t I say I want a room that looks out upon 
fields ? ” replied Lydia, steadily, “ and I hear there are 
some to be let near the church, where one can actually 


156 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


hear the singing during the services. Think what a 
treat that will be for me ! ” 

Wlio tell most stories, and are most artful — the good 
women or the bad ones ? 

Lydia went to her lodgings, and the new branch of 
the Howels filled the Red House, and for a time things 
went on better with them. In fact, the deepest secret 
of their adversity was not the stagnation of trade, nor 
the opposition — ^it was something in Tom. It was that 
something which had emboldened the new builder to 
come. Of late other people than kindly !Mr. Boulder 
had found poor Tom more than once in muddy gutters. 
And there was no help for it now — little hope for him. 
He had had a kindly physician once, but he made some 
fatal mistake in following out her prescription. They 
were both lonely now — those two women. Mrs. Tom sent 
off her scared, sickly children, and sat watching in the 
great tea-room, grown mildewed and shabby ; sat watching 
and weeping, to think of her old-fashioned garments and 
moth-eaten carpet, and no parties, and few callers ; sat 
watching, and framing reproaches with stings sharp 
enough to half-vitalise her husband’s deadened conscious- 
ness, when a reefing step on the stairs should announce 
his return. But Lydia hid her face on her pillow, and 
wept for the brave lover of her girlhood — the dashing, 
pure-hearted boy who had taught her those breezy 
hymns ! Ah, that old parable on the coast by Conway ! 
And, after all, whose was the boat that was dashed on 
the rocks, while the other went sailing away — away ? 

But when the scandal grew so loud that her ovm ac- 
quaintances no longer tried to pretend they did not hear 
it, then Lydia said, calmly, — 


A HAPPY WOMAN. 


157 


‘‘ I am sure it is not his fault. No more his fault than 
it is my fault that I cannot rise from my couch. His 
nerves were completely shattered by that accident. We 
have both suffered in different ways, but his has been 
the worst, poor boy !” 

From that she never wavered. Was it so ? Or was 
it but the outcome of an inherent weakness of nature, 
which a strong, tender hand might have held in ? Who 
can teU ? 

One summer evening in the golden twilight, Tom 
visited her in her new apartments. He came in his best 
clothes, but even those had been in the gutter more that 
once. Poor Tom! He didn’t know what to say, for 
most of his evenings were passed in pot-houses, and his 
days in stupefaction, and what could he tell her of all 
that ? But she talked to him — made him admire some 
green things growing in a drawing-room jardiniere, 
showed him her cat, and her album, made him talk about 
his children, wouldn’t ask him to stay to supper, “ be- 
cause Minnie would be expecting him,” but would read 
her chapter before supper, if he would just stay to give 
her the treat of somebody to make family worship with. 
“ And oh,” she sobbed, when she told me the story, days 
after, ‘‘ he said ‘ good-night ’ so kindly, but he looked ill 
and old then, and he walked to the door of the room, 
and there he turned back suddenly, and stooped down 
and kissed me, and said ‘ Good-bye, good-bye 1’ and 
when he lifted up his face, he looked so hke the young 
man that came in his mourning from Conway 1 ” 

Next night, Tom Howel did not return home. That 
poor fretful wife of his was never quite the same after 
that last vigil, when, as the hours crawled by, she would 


158 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


have blessed even the horrid reeling step in the hall. In 
the morning they sought for him. They went first to 
the tavern— alas! He had been there, but not late. 
He had looked in about nine o’clock, but only to leave 
an ordinary message for some crony. He had told the 
barmaid he had been for a long walk. He did not take 
anything there, but the girl could not say whether he 
had been drinking or not. He did not say whether he 
was going home. He went by the back door. 

How, there were two ways from this tavern to the Eed 
House — one by the front door across the market-place 
and down the High Street. The other led across a field, 
and through a lane which opened on the High Street 
just below the Howels’ house. Part of this lane ran 
beside the canal. 

They dragged it, and they found him. Out of the 
slimy mud they drew him, and laid him on the gravel 
walk, in the stare of the sunny sky. Tenderly enough 
they touched him, those old bargeman ; they had known 
him years before, when he had joked and laughed with 
them, because, at least more than anything in that in- 
land place, they savoured of his old pursuits, and his old 
friends at Conway ! 

There was a great outcry with the widow and the chil- 
dren in the old Red House. Everybody thought of 
them. I stole away to the cottage hj the church. 

“ Miss Howel wants to be by herself,” said her little 
maid, who was crying ; “ she told me to give her very 
kindest thanks to anybody that called. But she wants 
to be by herself for a little while.” 

Had he fallen into the water in the dusk, or ? 

The civil jurymen at the inquest did not raise a doubt — 


A HAPPY WOMAN. I $9 

till they had given their verdict, and then they conjec- 
tured as freely as anybody. 

“ Poor Tom,” said Lydia, when I saw her. ‘‘ Pm sure 
he meant to amend. That was what he meant when he 
kissed me. And he had taken a quiet walk to think 
over it. And- very likely he was faiut and dizzy, as 
people often are, when they try to leave off stimulants. 
And it was always very early dark in that lane — I remem- 
ber that well — and so he feU in. And God let it happen 
because He saw that Tom had suffered enough, and He 
is such a pitiful God, and knew that it was easier for 
Tom and for us, that he should go when he was feeling 
a little happier and more like himself. I always think 
that if I might choose when to die, it should not be 
when I was very miserable or in great pain.” 

And then she went and hved with Minnie in the Bed 
House, and her slender income was all devoted to Tom’s 
children. And how she did try to keep in the back- 
ground, and to convince those gmls and boys that their 
pretty, active mother was much nicer company than the 
poor iavalid distant relation ! But they would tell her 
all their secrets, and oh, how bitterly did Mrs. Howel 
complain when at last Lydia was informed of young 
Owen’s intended marriage, before she had any idea of it ! 

“ Well,” said Miss Vix, in tart reply to her bewailings 
(not being a tender-hearted woman, who feels there are 
some wounds that must not be touched even by truth), 
“ you can’t say she took away your first chance of him.” 

And when Lydia died, young Owen put on her grave 
her name, her age, the years of her affliction, and this 
line — 

“ Behold, we count them happy which endure.” 



FEW years ago, my chambers in the city needing 


± 1 . some repairs, I spent a short thne in the house 
of an old friend in Bloomsbury. He was a medical man 
and not very rich ; for he had two or three tricks that 
were rather drawbacks to his success. He would tell 
plain truth to his patients — even his best ones ; so some 
got well inconveniently quick, and never needed him 
again, and others were offended, and carried their pet 
chronic miseries to more sympathetic quarters. And he 
never lost patience with poor helpless invalids who 
couldn’t pay at all. Sternly enough he told Mrs. He 
Brook, the stockbroker’s wife, that the best remedy for her 
“ nervous dyspepsia ” was less care of herself, and more 
care for others. But he never told the poor government 
clerk’s widow nothing could delay her death, and that 
she might as well die without his gratuitous visits, 
which would have saved time and trouble, and gjlined 
him some black reputation as a medical prophet. No, 
Dr. Chester was not a rich man ; but he had an income 
large enough for one of the old brown houses near the 
Foundling. Very much alike are all those houses, with 
deep areas, and two windows beside the door, and two 
rows of three above it, and a third row of two in a 
sloping roof — like prominent eyes in a retreating fore- 


(i6o) 


SOMEDAY. 


i6i 


Lead — behind a gutter, considerately constructed for the 
use of cats, and what with these gutters, and the deep 
areas, and the squares, Bloomsbury is surely the happy 
land of the feline race. And you may make very accu- 
rate guesses as to the interior of those houses. There 
will be two rooms aU the way up, with an extra back 
room at the end of the hall, and perhaps a paper parti- 
tion in the large front attic. If there is a doctor’s name 
on the door (and there are many doctors’ names on the 
doors in Bloomsbury), then the front parlor will be the 
family dining-room, and the back one the consulting 
room, with its soothing prospect of a flagged court, and 
a tree in somebody else’s garden peeping over the wall ; 
and you’d better not look into the thud chamber unless 
you want to scare yourself with certain suspicious objects 
bottled up in spirits. The two rooms on the first floor 
win be drawing rooms unless the family is unmanage- 
ably large, and then (oh ! mention it not in Philistia) the 
back one will be the chief bed-room, with the venerable 
four-poster; and all above will certainly be roosting 
perches, only while the children are young, the large, 
cheerful back-attic, with its broad small-paned window 
and its prospect of red tiles and scanty trees, and a spire 
for the prominent feature, will be called “ the nursery.” 
For when a place has two uses it must have two names, 
and why not use the best ? Next door, perhaps, is a 
lodgmg-house. You can guess that by the long white lace 
curtains at all the front windows except those in the re- 
tirement of the gutter. You may also define its interior 
with the accuracy of a sybil. The parlours and the large 
back attic are rented by two gentlemen from the City — 
foreigners most likely, for most natives of even their 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


162 

moderate position have sundry sulky and expensive pre- 
judices which prevent them from sharing a sittiug-room. 
The “ first-floor ” is a barrister, who has a piano of his 
own, and keeps an aquarium. The “second-floor” is a 
solicitor in chrysahs. First-floor and second-floor are 
not on friendly terms. Nay, there is a deadly feud be- 
tween them. They have never exchanged a word, and 
their weapons of warfare are the accentuations of their 
steps on the stairs, and the way their belts ring at the 
same time, second-floor’s ” loudest and longest, hke the 
protest of a man who expects to be wronged. The front 
attic is divided, and the smaller division, that without a 
fireplace, is the private apartment of a sohcitor’s clerk, 
who “ boards ” in the kitchen with the landlady’s family. 
It is generally a landlady in Bloomsbury ; in fact, in 
most cases you may safely predicate there are two land- 
ladies — mother and daughter, sister, or aunt and niece, the 
one who is visible, and who negotiates all arrangements, 
always professing herself entirely subordinate to the 
Mysterious Unknown, so that any household regula- 
tion which does not suit a lodger is never her fault at all, 
and would be removed instantly, if she were the only 
party who had a voice in the matter. These alternate 
establishments, occasionally varied by the private resi- 
dence of some Hebrew magnate of the Minories, com- 
pose Bloomsbury, long deserted by Fashion, and now 
wistfully coquetting with Gentihty, sorely tempted to go 
off to Villaopolis in the Metropolitan Kail way. But 
there are some men, like my friend Chester, who will 
faithfully cling to the old place till the last. 

Chester had never married. And he never told me 
why not. We did not know each other till we were 


SOMEDAY. 


163 


past forty, but, I can assure my yoimg lady reader, that 
is not too old to make sentimental confidences. We 
grim old cronies don’t sit over the fire till the small 
hours to talk of nothing else but pohtics. We may not 
use fine words, hke “ anguish,” and “ angelic,” and “ for 
ever.” The romance in us has left off gushing, but 
shall we call it frozen — or crystallized ? Nevertheless, I 
have heard Chester quoting poetry — very well, too, and 
a more chivalrous man I never knew. It could not have 
been poverty that hindered his marriage, for he made 
his modest professional success very early. There were 
two brothers Chester, the doctor was the elder. The 
other was in the army, and his portrait and his wife’s 
hung in the drawing-room. I fear this brother was not 
a steady young man. I fancy there must have been 
something wrong about his marriage, for he and the 
doctor seem never to have met after it till the officer 
was a widower and dying. He left two children, Horace 
and Olive, and my friend adopted them both, and 
brought them up and furnished them with a home in 
the house in Bloomsbury, till Horace, a young spark in 
the War Office, discovered that it was an mconvenient 
locahty for his attendance at West-End evening parties, 
and accordingly migrated to Onslow Square. 

Olive Chester remained with her uncle. At the time of 
my Christmas visit she was about twenty-three years of age, 
a tall girl, v^ith what certain people call “ a good style ” 
about her. That is to say, she looked as if she never did 
anything, and some people have a curious logic that what- 
ever is useless is probably ornamental. Now I like nice 
young girls, and my sister Ruth says I stretch this defi- 
nition so wide that it includes nearly all of them. But I 


164 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


did not look on Olive Chester as any pleasant ingredient 
in my sojourn at her uncle’s house. All the hues in her 
face went down, except her eyebrows, and they were 
painfully elevated. In any other home I think she 
would have acted invalid. I beheve she had tried it 
once or twice, but her uncle had plainly told her that he 
knew better, and that nothing ailed her but selfish idle- 
ness, and he had suggested many ways whereby she 
might remedy this disease. Ohve had evaded them all 
for the time, and made no more physical excuses for her 
depressions, and, indeed, kept herself as much as possible 
from Chester’s notice. Perhaps it was supine on his 
part not to carry out a radical cure. But I am quite 
ready to grant that his was not a strong nature. He 
could cut off the tops of weeds, nobody could cut 
quidier and sharper, but his was not the fii’m, deter- 
mined hand that attacks the root and pulls it up. 
Further, as regarded intimate connections, he had hved 
a lonely life, and had acquired habits of watching human 
nature without thought of active interference. I think 
there was a httle unconscious cynicism in his apparent 
complacency. He hked a sly laugh at what he thought 
the harmless frailties of humanity, not being like Buth, 
who is never sure what is harmless, and who I have 
known to trace intimate connection between an untidy 
dress and a divorce suit. 

Olive was specially gloomy that Christmas-tide. Her 
imcle prepared me for this by puhing a comic long face, 
and announcing “ that I must have patience with one 
who was drinking the very dregs of existence. Christ- 
mas is Ohve’s time of torture, Garrett, her season for 
remembering the times that are no more, and the happi- 


SOMEDAY. 


165 


ness tliat can never return. She had an offer of mar- 
riage one Christmas, and she refused it ! I’ll tell you 
who it was, Garrett. It was young ]Milman, who used 
to be my assistant, and a clever young fellow too. But 
providence forbade a young lady of ‘ Olive’s position ’ 
{sic, as editors put in parenthesis), from marrying a man 
who could offer no better establishment than a six- 
roomed house and one maid-servant. Ever since, of 
course it would be highly unreasonable for me to protest 
against a state of lamentation which I can only faintly 
describe as both chronic and acute. In the early days of 
the grievance, with some feeble masculine notion of set- 
ting things to rights, I ventured to inquire if it was her 
refusal that she regretted. My only reward was a flood 
of tears, and a series of sobbing reflections on the unjust 
fate that bestows wealth on fat widowers like Sir Nicholas 
Biggs, vulgar boors like Mr. Stopper the dry-goods mer- 
chant, and poor old fogies hke my everlasting crony, Mr. 
Garrett, while nice young men, with handsome faces, and 
heaps of brains — especially shown in a partiahty to our- 
selves ! — have not a shilling except what they earn, and 
mothers depending upon them into the bargain. I then 
timidly tried a few remarks on the law of compensation, 
and the impossibility of getting everything one would 
hke. But Ohve interrupted that she could not have 
acted otherwise than she had done, and that she must 
go down to her grave a bhghted woman, which I silently 
thought to be a great pity, particularly for other people, 
since, however blight may enjoy its own misery, it is not 
a pleasant neighbour.” 

I was certainly very glad 'when another guest arrived. 
This was Bertha Buclian, a second orphan niece of Dr. 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


i66 

Chester, the daughter of a sister who had married a poor 
man, and had left this gii’l and two younger brothers 
wholly unprovided for. If their uncle’s means had been 
as large as his heart, he would have adopted them too, 
but under the circumstances he was obliged to be con- 
tent with extending to them a loving but limited protec- 
tion. So Bertha Buchan was a teacher in a Blackheath 
boarding-school. Dr. Chester knew the art which shows 
pathos by contraries, and he gave me a playful sketch of 
her life. 

‘‘Her duties are everything all day long,” he said. 
“ Her expectations are her holidays here. Her relaxa- 
tion is to walk sentinel by the column of girls, and snatch 
the benefit of air and exercise as well as she can with the 
proprieties of eighteen skittish fillies resting on her con- 
science. Her trouble is a certain letter that never comes 
from a certain young man, who went abroad because he 
was a failure at home, or, according to her version, ‘ be- 
cause he was too good for the people he was among.’ 
Her only leisure from term to term is Sunday afternoon. 
Then her brothers Ben and Bob walk over from London, 
and meet her in Greenwich Park. Only on fine Sundays, 
of course. But then they call every Sunday fine. Now, 
however, will be Bertha’s golden time, for she’ll see 
those two dear boys every day, either here or at their 
lodgings (they’re good enough lads, Garrett, but rough- 
ish). And she will enjoy the inexpressible satisfaction of 
overhauhng their wardrobes, and supply any blanks 
therein from her own httle purse — slyly ! — because Ben 
looks so queer whenever he knows she spends haK-a- 
crown on him instead of herself, as if she does not enjoy 
the former performance a gi’eat deal more, and as if she 


SOMEDAY. 


167 


has not a right to do what she will with her own, especi- 
ally after such extravagance as she has permitted herself 
lately. The peculiarity is that Bertha has always just 
committed some startling extravagance. Such as a ten- 
penny flower to brighten her last year's bonnet, or two 
pairs of gloves as first and second best, not to mention 
a pair of cloth gauntlets for wet days, and after dark ! 
My ! Garrett, but what selfish brutes we men are ! ” 

Bertha came on Christmas Eve. She looked quite 
short and plump beside stalky Olive, otherwise I don’t 
think she Vv^as very short or very plump. A bright, 
healthy girl, vdth very unclassic features, and wavy brown 
hair. “AVavy was not the right word for it,” Olive re- 
marked, while Bertha went to take off her bonnet, and 
reduce the lively locks to something like order, “for it 
was positively curly — Hke a boy’s — ^just like her odious 
brother Ben’s.” 

Early that same evening Horace Chester arrived. He 
did not very often visit Bloomsbury, though Dr. Chester 
told me that he always kept a seat for him when he gave 
a dinner to his professional friends. “ Horace,” said the 
doctor, “has an aristocractic air, an aristocratic toilet, 
and, I fear, an aristocratic bill at the Burlington Arcade, 
and at Poole’s.” 

The young gentleman took very httle notice of Bertha, 
for he had a critical eye, as far as it went, and could see 
that her dress had been unprofessionaUy made, also that 
her face had too much colour, and her manner too little 
repose. But Bertha herself was very glad to see him, for 
she was a friendly httle beiug, and besides she only saw 
him once a year, and that sight meant Christmas Eve. 

He had brought a gift for his sister. He produced it 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


1 68 

while Bertha was absent, — down in the kitchen, paying 
seasonable congratulations to the cross old cook. When 
she returned, Olive was just trying it on. It was an 
onyx necklace ; and the young lady was regretting that, 
“ as her best winter dress was black velvet, it would not 
show to advantage, though in itself it was sufficiently 
pretty.” When OHve took it off, Bertha held it up 
beside the lamp, and turned it about, and exclaimed so 
enthusiastically, and enjoyed it so heartily, that Horace 
looked up at her for a moment, and I fancied his critical 
eye caught a ghmpse of something more than the old- 
fashioned dress. 

“ You’re always dehghted with anything, Bertha,” said 
OHve. “ It’s a pity there isn’t somebody trying to please 
you, for it wouldn’t be hard ! ” It was said with a sneer 
— the greatest and truest compliments often are. 

“ Oh, there will be somebody someday ! ” Bertha re- 
turned cheerfully. 

“ You are going to have everything nice someday ; 
aren’t you ? ” pursued OHve, mocking. 

‘‘ Well, I hope so,” said Bertha. 

And I thought she might safely hope so. Only per- 
haps — perhaps — there might first be an angel’s touch, 
and a twilight passage over a river ! 

Ben and Bob arrived presently — demure and prim, in 
deference to their styhsh cousins Chester ; and a few 
minutes after, the footboy brought in a clothes-basket 
full of holly, — and other Christmas vegetation. At the 
sight thereof Olive sighed, and shaded her face with her 
hand, and shuffled on her chair, intending thereby to 
signify the xmeasiness of her heart. 

“Our young ladies always put up the decorations 
themselves ” said the doctor, with a significant wink. 


SOMEDAY. 


169 


‘‘Bertha may — I can’t positively,” gasped Olive. “I 
don’t see what people want with holly. It just stirs up 
aU sorts of pathetic associations and ” 

“But then I’m sure you enjoy the stirring, Olive,” 
interrupted her uncle. “ Well, Bertha, fall to work, and 
make the lads help you.” 

“ I’ve had twenty-three Christmases, and I have put up 
holly for seventeen of them, so I ought to be experienced,” 
observed Bertha, laughing. But the laugh died out a 
little suddenly. Perhaps she thought of her own old 
home, where, with an ailing father and sickly children, 
money had been so scarce that they might often have had 
no holly except the httle sprig which greengrocers give 
“in” with the Christmas vegetables. But father and 
mother and Httle lame sister had all got to the best 
“ someday ” now, and so the cloud was gone in a moment, 
and she joked and laughed as she put up the decora- 
tions. 

Gradually the fun warmed. Even Horace actually 
joined Ben in handing the boughs to Bertha as she 
stood poised on a hassock, a stool, and a chair, placed 
one above the other. 

“ Wouldn’t it be better — aw — if I went up, aw ” 

I heard him inquire. “ It looks — aw — fearful to see you 
in such a position.” 

“ Oh, thank you ; but I enjoy it,” answered Bertha. 
And Ben observed that Bertha never turned giddy. 

Meantime, the doctor and Bob had been fastening 
something to the chandeher, and when it proved to be a 
twig of mistletoe, then the fun grew fast and furious and 
Bertha was kissed over and over again by her uncle and 
brothers, and even by Horace Chester, first-class clerk in 
8 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


170 

the Knapsack Department, War Office. I think he could 
hardly beheve it of himseK when he had done it, and ever 
since I have noticed that his pohte physiognomy breaks 
into quite a pleasant smile at the very name of Bertha 
Buchan, who somehow gave him a revelation of a way 
in the world, where one may absolutely be happy, 
although not in the fashion. 

Bat-tat. It was the last post. The footboy brought 
in seven letters. In Bertha’s eyes I saw a hope that in 
such a feast there might be a crumb for herself ! If not 
The Letter, at least a letter from* some school-girl, 
smitten with affectionate remembrance of her good- 
natured teacher. Horace read them out. Two for Dr. 
Chester, one for Edward Garrett, Esq. ; four for IVIiss 
•Chester. Before her face had time to look disappointed, 
Bertha was lost in innocent dehght over the pretty en- 
closuJ!>es that Olive displayed. One, a nice long letter 
(“hand-writing feminine,’^ muttered the doctor), mth a 
prosperous robin at the top ; another, a Christmas hymn 
wreathed in holly ; the third, a Bimmel’s almanack for 
the coming year ; the fourth, an illuminated text — ^not 
printed, but dehcate handiwork — from which Bertha 
read, in her sweet, serious tones, “ Dehght thyself also in 
the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine 
heart.” 

The doctor looked at the envelope. I caught a ghmpse 
of it. The direction was in a queer upright print-like 
writing — apparently a disguised hand. I could not 
tell what he thought of it, but Ohve noticed the move- 
ment, caught up the wrapper, gazed tragically upon it, 
and popped it into her reticule with dramatic energy. 

In due time Ben and Bob went their ways, and the 


SOMEDAY. 


171 

young ladies retired to their own room. Horace lingered 
with us old gentlemen just a little longer. 

“ Bertha is looking very weU,” said he. 

“ She always is,” returned his uncle. 

“ And she’s a — aw — jolly little woman,” Horace went 
on. ‘‘ To see her vrith that necklace, I was really sorry 
I had not something for her too, only, you see it comes 
— aw — expensive, for though I really think she would be 
pleased with — aw — imitation coral, yet it would not be 
fitting in me to give such — aw — present. And now, 
good night, uncle, and good night, Mr. Garrett, and I 
wish you both aU the correct — aw — seasonable wishes.” 

“ Does not Mr. Chester reappear to-moirow ?” I m- 
quired when he was gone. 

“ No,” said the doctor ; he always spends Christmas 
Day at the viUa of a colleague higher in office than him- 
self, who has a very charming sister. Horace half fancies 
himself in love with her, but not being quite sure, has 
never yet got further than a state of semi-idiocy while in 
her presence. And now, Garrett, I hope that you are 
aware that a tragedy is being enacted under this very 
roof. I know what is going on in the second-floor back 
bedroom as well as if I were there. Enter my two 
nieces. Olive sinks into a chair ; holds out an envelope ; 
exclaims, ‘ Why am I tortured by these conjectures ! 
He would never communicate with me again — unless — 
but such vain hopes are worse than hopelessness ! And 
yet that is hke his capital ‘ C ’ — and he always puts a 
colon after the name ! Oh, Bertha, it is so hard to endure !’ 
Bertha stands opposite — sympathetic ; does not even 
know that a thought floats through her mind that sus- 
pense concerning a rejected lover who must reasonably 


172 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


be supposed to Have banished one from his memory, 
can’t be quite so trying as the silence of one from whom 
you have parted — oh, so lovingly ! But Olive has such 
sensitive feelmgs! Of course, Bertha hasn’t. What 
associations can Christmas have for Bertha ? It is not 
much of a Christmas memory that once he came to 
morniug service at Bloomsbury Church, and sat behind 
a pillar wreathed with holly and laurel, and conveniently 
believing that I was blind, shook hands with her in the 
porch.” 

“ You did not invite him here?” I said, pitying the 
poor starved Httle loving-making so tenderly kept alive 
on the very light food of fond imaginations. 

“ No, Garrett, no,” returned the doctor. “ I am not a 
fiend, though I am a bachelor, and for my own part I have 
no high views of the ‘ position ’ of either of my neices ; 
but still I should decidedly scout a hopeful suitor with 
eighty pounds a year, and no prospects in the world 
or in himself! Well, she’ll not see him in Bloomsbury 
Church this year. And between you and I, I hope he 
won’t write to her, and I hope she’ll forget all about 
him.” 

Next morning Ohve came down to breakfast very 
blighted indeed, — quite miserable to behold. We aU 
went to church together, and there she kept down her 
veil, and didn’t stand up at singing-time, and sighed 
away the sermon. At home she sat at the festive board 
like a memento of misery, and could not bear the piano 
to be opened, so that “ the boys ” had none of the music 
they hked so much and heard so seldom. Indeed, 
Bertha feared it was altogether dull work for them, but 
she herself did her best, and could not help the compara- 
tive failura 


SOMEDAY. 


173 


Dear little Bertha ! she sincerely enjoyed her holidays. 
It Tvas such a treat not to teach, and correct, and chide, 
as if oneself was the standard of everything, but to feel 
like a girl at home, and to be free for those kindly little 
duties wliich awaken smiles and cheerfulness. Bertha 
was one of those women who find duties wherever they 
go. ^yhich was one reason why she never grumbled at 
having “ no time for herself ” like the other teacher at 
the Blackheath boarding-school. It was pleasing her- 
self to serve others. She found her uncle’s maid, Mary, 
excited and fretful in an unsuccessful struggle to trim a 
cap to take to her mother on New Year’s-day. In an 
hour the cap was finished, as Mary said, “ beautiful, and 
mother ’ll be so proud to hear you did it, miss.” She 
made herseK her uncle’s right hand. He took her to see 
one or two of his juvenile patients, and he declared that 
she deserved the fees for curing them with her bright 
face and merry stories. She went out every evening 
with her brothers — ^braving possible snow-storms, with 
skirts tucked up a la Watteau, and a great plaid shawl 
over her waterproof cape. “ She doesn’t mind what guy 
she makes herself,” Olive said. They went to see the 
Houses of Parliament by moonlight, and the torch -light 
skating on the Serpentine, and every other sight that 
cost nothing but a walk. And during that visit, Ben 
cast a cynical skin that had been creeping over his fine 
honest nature, and began to comprehend that true charity 
must have a Httle patience with Horace Chester’s fop- 
peries and Ohve Chester’s “ feelings,” as well as with the 
failings of the poor drunken cobbler who tried so hard 
to reform, or the dishonesty of the street boy who 
snatched a loaf to take to his sick mother. And in the 


174 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


course of a discussion we had, the httle woman dropped 
a remark which I saw made a very deep impression on^ 
merry Bob — “ that the better one grew the happier one / 
became, and that if anybody were dull, that person might / 
be good, but could not be very good.’’ 

But Christmas holidays must have an end, and 
Bertha’s closed very prematurely. The Blackheath 
governess requested her to return on the second of 
January, to keep house while she herseK went on a 
visit. Bertha consented without a moment’s hesitation, 
and went off to pay a farewell visit to the only personal 
friend she had in London, an old feUow-teacher dying in 
the Consumption Hospital She came back as bright as 
ever, though the brightness was like sunlight among 
showers. Then she packed her trifle of luggage, and 
cheerfully prepared to depart alone, for her uncle had an 
important engagement that afternoon, and the evening 
before Ben could not be sure whether he could be spared 
from his counting-house. How dehghted she was when 
I offered my escort ! I am not quite an old fool, and I 
knew how much to set down to her warm-heartedness ; 
but if I had been a young man, I think I might been 
dangerously flattered ! Ben rushed into the station just 
in time to get a last look of his sister. 

“ She’s made Christmas for everybody,” said he, as we 
watched the train which carried her away ; ‘‘ only I’m not 
sure whether she’s had any for herseK !” 

When I returned to Bloomsbury, I saw the two 
women-servants giggling at the area window. The very 
page had a smhk on his serene face as he let me in. And 
at the other end of the hall there was the doctor himseK, 
peeping out of his sanctum, smiling and wagging his head, 
and beckoning me towards him. 


SOMEDAY. 


175 


“We won’t say a word about it/’ be whispered, as he 
closed the door upon us both ; “ nevertheless, we will 
keep our private opinion, that some people are great 
fools!” 

“ What has happened ? ” I asked, mystified. 

“ Here is Dr. Milman got a good birth of eight hun- 
dred a year,” said the old gentleman, “ and he has 
actually come back to ask Olive if he is good enough for 
her now ! I should not wonder if she sends him away 
to get a thousand 1 But I hope she won’t, for she has 
spoiled my digestion these two years, and I’ve had 
enough of it 1” 

That evening Olive had a long interview with her 
unde. When it was over, I caught a vision of her run- 
ning up-stairs, with her handkerchief held to her face. I 
think Dr. Chester had been speaking seriously to her. 
He looked very grave when I joiued him, though he 
presently began to laugh it off. 

“ She has taken him, Garrett,” said he, “ so please to 
behave yourself, and wish us joy. Also she has found a 
new grievance. If she had but known the end from the 
beginning, her feelings might have been spared this 
terrible laceration, from which she does not beheve her 
spirits will ever recover. And Dr. Milman himself is 
terribly changed. Why, his hair is iron-grey, and he 
has furrows on his forehead ! It gave her quite a shock 
when he came in. And he is so grave and solemn ! She 
can’t connect him with the dear, handsome, light-hearted 
young man that he was. ‘ Oh, uncle, isn’t it hard ?’ 
‘ Olive,’ I said, ‘ you are not worth Milman’s grey hairs 
and hned brow, and only for his sake, now he has got 
you, I hope it will never please God to open his eyes to 
that truth.’ Oh, Garrett, and our little Bertha would 


176 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


spend her last farthing on a fatted calf if Somebody came 
back, in rags, sunburnt and unshaven ! But I suppose 
it would be too much like heaven, if such as Milman and 
Bertha married each other.” 

I left Bloomsbury only a few days afterwards, and did 
not see Chester again for some time. But when we met, 
I did not forget to inquire after Miss Buchan. The 
doctor had seen her only the day before. He had to visit 
a patient near Morden College, and so he called in at the 
school. “ I took the liberty of asking her if The Letter 
had come yet,” said he, “and she said, ‘Yes,’ she had 
found it on her return from the holidays. Nobody had 
thought of forwarding it. I told her a bit of my mind, 
Garrett, and she cried, — she did, — and at last she show- 
ed me this letter, to finally convince me what a nice 
young man he is. It was not very long, though it began 
with ‘ dearest Bertha.’ And it only said there seemed no 
better ‘ chance ’ for a fellow in Australia than in London, 
but he had a desk in a counting-house, where the work 
was not very hard, so he was comfortable enough him- 
self, and he could assure her that she need not to fret 
about him. Only he wished some old relation would 
leave him a few hundreds, for there were some fine farms 
up the country, and the other day he saw a settler’s 
httle 'wife who reminded him so much of her. And he 
supposed she would spend Christmas in Bloomsbury as 
usual, and he hoped she would enjoy it, but she must 
not mix too much in festmties as if he were with her, 
and not out there, all by himseK. And despite aU I 
might say, Garrett, Bertha thanks God that yonder 
selfish pig has not forgotten her yet. But I think it is a 
pathetic thanksgiving offered with tearful eyes. Despite 


SOMEDAY. 


i;7 


her cheerful faith m ‘ someday,’ I think it is dawning 
upon her that she and Somebody will never be more to 
each other. ‘ We’ve waited five years already,’ she said, 
and it has not pleased God to help us to try hfe together : 
we are no further now than we were at the beginning.’ 
It never strikes her that it is because it has pleased God 
to let her affections rise in one of those mysterious 
waste-floods whose Why we shall only know hereafter. 
She sent her love to OHve, and a message that she thinks 
she shall be able to have a hohday for the wedding. She 
does not envy Olive. And she need not. She has come 
far nearer to happiness in the dream that she clasps as 
the dearest bliss of her life, content to await its reahsa- 
tion ‘someday’ — over the Eiver. She is one of those 
women who cannot fancy ‘ someday ’ without ‘ Somebody.’ 
But if the magnet of her love cannot draw that heart to 
manly action on earth, Garrett, how shall it raise it to 
heavenward aspiration? Well, if it fail at last the 
Father will give her strength which He has not granted 
yet. I am sure the loving God will be pitiful to such as 
little Bertha — Someday. I only wish I was like her, 
Garrett I ” 



8 * 


VI. 


WALTER SEDLEY. 

O UE house, Garrett, Giles & Co., enjoyed the pos- 
session of a square pew in the church of St. 
Aubyn’s-by-the-Bridge. Before my own time I don’t know 
who used it, for our housekeepers were generally Dis- 
senters, and all our young men lodged too far away to 
care for a long walk citywards on Sundays. So when 
I became the resident partner, I had it all to myself. It 
was a pew which would hold at least ten — more if they 
were httle ones, as some are hkely to be in a family pew. 
I never felt lonelier than in that* pew. Only fancy how 
different it might have been with five or six bonnie little 
children and a dear mother, finding their places and 
training them in good behaviour ! It was quite sad to 
see aU those comfortable hassocks that nobody ever 
kneeled upon, and the row of Bibles and Prayer-books 
that nobody ever used. If St. Aubyn’s had been the 
church of some crowded central or suburban parish, I 
might have grown quite popular by filling my pew from 
the free seats. But except some alms-people there was 
nobody on the free seats at St. Aubyn’s, save two old 
women who sat at either side of the stove, and warmed 
their shaking fingers when the other people were kneel- 
ing. A stranger needed only to peep in at the door — 
perhaps to see what sort of painted window we had — 

(178) 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


179 


and straightway INIrs. Dobbs the pew-opener invited him 
to lose himself in the commodious pew of Overbury 
Brothers or Nichols and White, neither of which had 
been claimed for time out of mind. There was really no 
chance to exercise the hospitable virtues at St. Aubyn’s. It 
was a proud day for us when the bishop honoured our 
old clergyman by filling his pulpit one bright Sunday (I 
think they had made the engagement at the breakfast 
after the wedding of the bishop’s cousin and the rector’s 
niece). Then one had an opportunity to be civil and 
kindly. I opened my door for Mrs. Macy of the Benbow 
Dining Rooms, and IVIr. Hummel the German tailor. 
Mrs. Macy was a nominal Dissenter, and Mr. Hummel 
was generally considered to be an infidel. But the bishop 
was an event which neither of them could -withstand, and 
I was reaUy sorry that it was not stronger diet which he 
had sweetened for them with his rank and lawn sleeves. 

It was Christmas morning, about fifteen years ago. I 
seldom went to Mallowe for my Christmas. The firm 
generally had special business at that season, and I, as 
the old bachelor, thought it my duty to attend to it. 
Usually there was some stray new young clerk who was 
glad to accept a share in my turkey and a slice of my 
pudding. But that year, there was none. I could not 
help feeling that I was getting my best bit of Christmas 
when I was giving the “ boxes ” on Christmas Eve. There 
were many houses where I believed I should have been 
heartily welcome, but nobody had thought of inviting me 
because I was supposed to be extending my hospitality 
to the straggling sheep of my o-wn fold. 

It was a clear, keen, bright day. Of course, I would 
attend the morning service, and as I dressed, I tried to 


i8o 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


put myself back iuto the days of my childhood. Then, 
Christmas had been a keen delight because of the holly 
in church, and the hj^mns, and the dainties for dinner. 
"Why couldn’t I be quite satisfied with these things now ? 
Because my nature had risen above them ? And then I 
thought to myself that, after aU, I was as far below the real 
happiness of Christmas as ever. The Babe in the cradle 
of Bethlehem — was not He as much for me as for my 
partner Giles, with his good wife and six fine children ? 
And yet somehow it seemed that even for the sake of 
that Babe, I did not like to be quite lonely on Christmas 
Day. 

As I passed the little graveyard that lay beneath my 
own window, I peeped between the palings and wondered 
how the people there had kept Christmas in their time, 
and what difference it made to other people, when one 
by one those forgotten graves were first filled. For a 
simple girl-name on an old tombstone in MaUowe had 
made aU the difference to me ! And then I walked down 
Garden Street, and saw that the chemist had fresh 
curtains hung at his parlour window. And at another 
door there was a weU-dressed, pleasant-looldng youth 
makmg a double knock. Ah, well ! And I turned into 
Benbow Place. 

There was a young man standing at the comer. I 
looked at him, for in that place, except during business 
hours, there was seldom anybody whom I did not know 
sufficiently for a salutation, especially just as St. Aubyn’s 
scanty congregation was passing in. But this was a 
stranger. A taU young man. Not well dressed. Not 
shabby. His eyes met mine, and there was something in 
his expression that caught my mind, and puzzled it, and 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


I8l 


I went on trying to make it out. It was not exactly 
reckless, it was not whoUy unhappy. It was a peculiar 
mingling of those two frames — and of something else. 
When I reached the church steps, I looked back. He 
was still standing there. I felt sure he was not waiting 
for anybody. He had no overcoat, nor yet any of those 
wrappers with which the hardier or thriftier content 
themselves. In a milder season, he would have passed 
for a well-to-do youth, a httle careless in his toilet arrange- 
ments. But, as it was, there was something about him 
which said, plainly enough, that he would make no double- 
knock at any door that Christmas Day. It struck me 
sadly that he was lonelier than myself. Some people in 
my position might have already cheered themselves with 
the reflection that there would be many who would be 
very glad of their society, if one only knew where to find 
them. That never cheers me. It seems to me the most 
pitiful fact of this life, that what is wasted on the one 
hand may be wanted on the other. “ If my little Lucy 
had hved, and we two had married, we might have had a 
son who would have been just his age,” I said to myself. 
Ah, if ! I turned again to the church-door, but something 
seemed pulling me back. What had made me notice 
that young man ? What had made me feel that he was 
sorrowful and tried ? However watchful we may strive 
to be, depend on it we do not notice all that are so. 
Christ would not have blamed the priest and the Levite 
if they had passed the wounded man in the dark, and 
had never known he was there. It was because they 
“ looked on him,” and yet “ passed by on the other side.” 
I might say this young man was nothing to me. But 
then they might have said the same. Probably they 


i 82 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


thouglit so ; and truthfully, for was not the reward of the 
good Samaritan’s loving-kindness just the acquisition of 
the sweet rights of friendship and neighbourhood? I 
turned once more, and went back to the comer. It was 
done in such a minute — so impulsively — that I had 
touched his shoulder before I knew what I meant to say. 
Better so. He looked round at my tap, and before I 
could even speak, there was a change in his face that 
took away all fear of repulsion. I only said — 

“ My boy, won’t you join in our church servive this 
Christmas morning ? ’’ 

His eyes fell, and he simply answered, “ Thank you,” 
but he instantly moved towards St. Aubyn’s, and we both 
went in together. I motioned him on to my pew. He 
sat down at a little distance from me, but not at the 
extreme end of the seat — no farther off than any friend 
might sit. He gave one or two quick glances round, and 
then opened a Bible, but, somehow, I did not think he 
read. But as soon as the service began, he joined in, 
attentively enough, almost nervously attentive, as I have 
noticed many people to be when going through a once 
famihar duty which has grown strange. 

He looked a gentleman. By that, I do not mean one 
who had never done handiwork or known the want of 
money. I mean rather one who is aware that there is 
somebody else in the world besides himself, and that they 
have rights and claims that he respects. If some may 
think, at first blush, that this definition scarcely includes 
all the meaning of the word gentleman, they may see 
more of its force, by reflecting that a vulgar person can- 
not be better described than by the slang phrase “ think- 
ing himself everybody.” Bat at the same time, this 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


183 


young man’s manner had also that “chasing,” which 
satisfies many people, whether the metal be worth it or 
no. He moved quietly. He had a refined accent (for 
once or twice he joined in the responses), and his whole 
bearing had that character which simple country-folk 
often call the “nobleman look.” And he had a noble 
face. Nature had made him in her grand style. But, 
alas ! it was a nobihty fallen. Fallen into the blacker 
pits that he unguarded beside the rugged and shady path 
where we all follow Father Adam as he stepped down 
from the light and safety of Paradise. If it had not 
been such a noble face, it would scarcely have told the 
sad story so plainly. You saw what it might have been, 
by what it still was, in all its ruin. And despite the lines 
that passion had drawn before time had opportunity (he 
could not have been more than twenty-three), and despite 
the blur of sensuahty upon the finer outlines, there was 
enough left in that face to touch the heart of any fatherly 
man or good woman. And I thought, if I and my little 
Lucy had married, and had a son, suppose he had looked 
like that, and had sat so, in a stranger’s pew on Christ- 
mas morning ! 

Service over, he did not attempt to hurry off with a 
civil bow, as I half fancied he would. He did not even 
stir until I made a motion to depart. I am ashamed to 
say, that during the service, notwithstanding my increas- 
ing interest in him, 1 had had sundry doubts about ray 
course of conduct. It was not respectable to pick up 
with strangers in the street. It was not prudent to form 
acquaintances with people of whose antecedents one knew 
nothing. My nerves even ran low enough to recall sundry 
burglaries and such-like, supposed to have been promoted 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


184 

by similar rasb associations. I bad then stolen a glance 
at my fellow-worsbipper, and bad concluded there was 
no sucb danger in tins case — that is if my instincts stood 
me in any stead at all. But if not ? Wby, then, nobody 
would sympathise with me, but everybody would say that 
I was only served richly right ! I had then arrived at 
the feeble-minded conclusion that nobody could blame 
me for anything I had done as yet — though it was more 
than most people would have done, — and that, after aU, 
none could estimate the benefit that the youth might de- 
rive, even from such a passing notice, followed by the 
hallowed influence of the service. I would wish him a 
friendly good-moming, and be done with him, doubtless 
to our mutual rehef. But when he sat still, tiU I mj^'self 
arose, and when he lingered in the aisle till I followed, 
then I felt that uncomfortable sensation which we have 
when we stop to pity a starving dog, and then growing 
statistical and social-scientific, remember that we cannot 
be expected to feed all the starving dogs in the world, 
and march off, — but with the aroused animal behind us, 
dumbly urging our pity back upon us, and refusing to 
beheve in our hard-heartedness, till there is nothing for 
us to do, but to put our pohtical economy in our pocket 
and go in search of a tripe-shop ! The young man turned 
and looked at me. He made no further advance. If I 
went my way, he would go his. The look said he did not 
expect me to speak. He did not suppose that I would. 
Only I might, and if so, he was ready ! He let me pass him 
in the aisle. Even then I had not made up my mind what 
I should do. But in the outer porch I paused, and when I 
heard his step behind me, I turned briskly, and remarked 
(very oiiginally), that it was fine, seasonable weather. 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


185 


“Yes, indeed,” he said, with a half-smile. Last 
night I was looking at the Christmas pictures in the 
shops, and it struck me that none of the artists have 
courage to depict Father Christmas in the black, slushy- 
robe that he wears nine times out of ten.” 

“ No,” I said, bhndly carrying on the conversation ; “ it 
seems to be an artistic necessity to the comfort of Christ- 
mas within, that there should be snow and ice without.” 

We had crossed Benbow Place, and at the corner of 
Garden Street, he half paused, remembering that was 
the turning whence I had come. 

“ I am not in any hmuy to go home,” I said. “ Which 
way do you take ?” 

“ Any way will suit me,” he answered, simply. Wheth- 
er there was any bitterness in his reply, I could not teU. 
At least, it was not melodramatically displayed. So we 
both walked on till we got into one of the more import- 
ant thoroughfares running parallel with the Thames. 

I can never distinctly recall the exact way in which 
we drifted into conversation. I remember many things 
that we touched upon — the half-deserted churches that 
we passed, the lower strata of metropolitan industrial 
life, the charities of the season, and so forth. This stray 
companion of mine talked well, and though there was a 
shadow on his manner other than the becoming diffi- 
dence of a young man towards an elder, still there was a 
strong flavour of originality about him. He was made 
of the materials of great men, however tangled they 
might be at present. The acquaintance which he had of 
the intricacies of city-turnings excused me in asking if he 
hved in London. 

“ No,” he answered, and then he told me his name. 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


1 86 

which was Walter Sedley, and mentioned as his birth- 
place a country town, but one so near London that, if 
that giant continues its present rate of growth, a few 
years from the present time will make it quite suburban. 

“ Have you any friends here ?” I ventured to ask. 

“ No friends at all,” he said, with a marked emphasis 
on the noun, which led me to think that he had connec- 
tions of some sort which he did not include in that des- 
cription. 

“ Then you are like me, spending a lonely Christmas,” 
I remarked. But he did not seem to notice that pointed 
observation. 

Our walk had finally led us back to the little grave- 
yard under my windows, and I signified that I had 
reached home. “ Suppose you come home and dine 
with me ?” I suggested, rather nervously. “ It will make 
things more cheerful for us both.” 

He looked at me, and though there were no tears in 
his blue eyes, still they meant tears. “ It is very good 
of you to be so hospitable, sir,” he said, “ but how can I 
accept it ? I am the merest stranger, with no claim 

“ Tut, my boy,” I said, quite eagerly now, “ you’ll five 
yourseK to be so angry when ‘ no claims ’ are flung up 
in your face when you want to please yourself by doing 
a kindly action. Come in, and don’t make any bother 
about it, else I shall hope you may be gTandly punished 
in the same w’ay some day !” 

He did not say another word, not even a “ thank you,” 
as he followed me up the dark corkscrew staircase, where, 
I think, he almost stumbled once or twice. There was a 
burst of cheerful comfort when I opened my sitting-room 
door — for it was a dull day, and the bhnds were drawn. 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


187 


and tlie gas lit, and the fire ablaze, and the table bright 
with snowy linen and such modest display of china and 
silver as may grace a bachelor’s repast. To be sure, an 
old porter was my only attendant for the day. He was 
passing out as we went in, and I directed him to get an- 
other plate. And then I bustled up to the fire-place, 
calhng upon my guest to come and warm himself, and 
make himself quite at home. 

There was no response. I turned and saw him seated 
in a comer of the sofa, with his face buried in the pil- 
lows. And there was a dead silence till he heard the 
old porter fiddling with the handle of the door, and then 
he sprang up, and stood beside me on the rug, with the 
stmggle of strongly repressed emotion on his counten- 
ance. 

We had rather a quiet dinner. Whatever might be 
the skeleton of my young companion’s life, it had peeped 
tlirough somewhat too plainly to be altogether ignored, 
but I alluded to nothing beyond the most ordinary 
topics, till the last vestige of the meal was cleared away, 
and we had drawn up our chairs beside the hearth. 

“ My boy,” I said, “ it is now my turn to say that I 
am a stranger, and have no claim upon your confidence. 
But I cannot help feeling that there must be some reason 
why one like you is thus lonely so near your native place. 
I don’t think you are happy. I repeat that I am aware 
a few hours of pleasant companionship give me no right 
to make these remarks. But if you think it might 
help you to open your mind to one who must view things 
with a stranger’s dispassionate eyes, my best counsel 
and comfort are at your disposal. If you think other- 
wise, I ask your pardon for a well-meant intmsion.” 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


1 88 

He sat quite quiet, gazing at the fire. I saw that he 
could not speak. The struggle between feeling and re- 
serve was going on again. Presently it stmck me that 
it might help him if I made a gradual way for his confi- 
dence by a few simple questions, which he might answer 
shortly or fully, as returning calmness and inchnation 
would permit. 

“ You are not offended ? ” I said gently. 

“ I — thank you,” he answered. 

“And you are not happy?” 

He shook his head with the quick, tortured motion of 
an animal when it is struck. 

“ Have you been long in London ?” I asked presently. 

“ Only since — yesterday morning,” he replied. 

“ And did you leave home then ?” I mquired. \ 

“ Such home as I have,” he answered, suddenly gain- 
ing a desperate calmness. “I am a married man, sir.” 

He was not what is called young-looking for his age, 
but as he uttered these portentous words, he did look 
dolefully boyish. The sad story came out little by little. 
Some particulars I did not learn till a later period. 
Walter Sedley’s father had been an affluent mercantile 
man. His family had consisted of two sons, Walter 
being the younger. Their childhood had been spent 
with their parents in that little country tovm, and Wal- 
ter’s voice trembled as he spoke of the old home, and the 
rustic bench in the orchard where their mother used to 
teach them their hymns, vith the fair Surrey hills 
stretching before them, or in later times, of the winter 
Sunday afternoon Bible-readings, in which the whole 
family joined, verse about, in primitive fashion. From 
all I could gather of Walter’s parents, I should think 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


189 


they were simple, good people, perhaps not acute, doc- 
trinal Christians, haply not quite able to obey prompt 
St- Peter’s exhortation to be ready to answer “ every 
man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you,” 
but to the vital test, “ By their fruits shall ye know them,” 
rendering the unfeigned response of “ patient continuance 
in weU-doing.” However, though they hved long enough to 
print in their children’s hearts an undying memory of 
goodness and happiness, they died, just when, in many 
senses, their sons needed them most. Very nearly togeth- 
er they died. The mother had long been an invalid ; 
but some attempt on her husband’s part to keep up busi- 
ness by day and vigils by night, brought on a sudden ill- 
ness which carried him off first, where she was not slow tc 
foUow. At the time of this double bereavement, the 
lads were aged respectively seventeen and fifteen.' In 
this world’s goods, they were well provided for, as each 
might expect about nine thousand poimds, if everything 
in the business was fuUy realised. They were left to the 
sole guardianship of their father’s only brother, a man 
who had showed himself sufi&ciently shrewd and capable 
in his own career. Whether this uncle lacked feelings 
of conscientious responsibihty, and made experiments in 
speculation with his dead brother’s money, or whether 
it was but the natural consequence of proxy manage- 
ment, both business and capital swiftly dwindled down 
during the years of their minority. Yet I don’t think 
this was the chief cause of the bitterness that I could 
see Walter Sedley felt towards his uncle and his uncle’s 
family. 

It is certainly no sinecure to be a guardian, — as dis- 
tinguished from the mere professional trustee who dis- 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


190 

charges his duty by simple honesty. A guardian as- 
sumes personal relations towards his wards, which from 
some inherent barrier in their organization, may some- 
times only prove the more disastrous to both, the more 
earnestly they are carried out. He is invested with 
parental authority unsoftened by the spell of parental 
affection. In most cases he has children of his ovm, and 
has to steer himself between considering the strangers too 
much, only because they are strangers, or his own children, 
just because they are his own. In such a case, a warmly- 
feeling, tender-hearted Christian man may, by the help 
of God, keep his conscience clear, and his hands clean ; 
but a worldling will be sure to fail. 

In the first instance, Harry and Walter Sedley took 
up their abode in their uncle’s house. The family were 
all older than them, the youngest boy being just one 
year a-head of Harry. There were two or three daugh- 
ters, young women from twenty to twenty-five years of 
age, and though it is natural to suppose that the sister- 
less orphans had first approached them with aU the in- 
terest and admiration of novelty and inexperience, yet 
they had so effectually crushed this out, that Walter 
spoke of them only with sheer contemptuous dislike, and 
I could not doubt they had indirectly done their full 
share of mischief by lowering the whole tone of his 
moral being. I could understand they were by no 
means a united family, and that the sisters had a sinister 
delight when they could catch a flirtatious triumph over 
each other. But it is just such people who are most 
skilful in combining to make their relationship a torment 
to outsiders, especially as it can be done so insidiously, 
that if the outsider cry out with the pain it simply proves 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


I9I 

ill-temper and bad feeling. There was one brother from 
home, married, and the orphans seemed to find their first 
friend in his poor httle wife, whose temper and energies, 
however, were slowly souring and withering under the 
infinitesimal poisoned thrusts and side sHghts which, for 
her husband’s sake, she had to bear in silence. There 
were other brothers still at home, and the elder of these, 
Dick, a careless young man of two-and-twenty, was the 
only one of the household who did not give the orphans 
very distinctly to understand that they were most un- 
welcome intruders. 

I can well reahze what life in such a home must have 
been. A good many visitors, but nothing of the warmth 
and fight of genuine friendship — ^joyless gaiety, and the 
vitality of family intercourse kept up by stinging pricks 
rather than healthy h’iction. The two brothers had con- 
tinued in their affection to each other, but before long, 
Walter became aware that Harry and their cousin Dick 
had confidences in which he did not share. Dick and 
his father were never on very good terms. Dick had not fal- 
len into the groove which his father had made for him, and 
was not unjustly considered the black sheep of the family. 
As years passed on, AValter himself was admited to some 
of the intimacy between his brother and their cousin. It 
was certainly rather too much to expect a youth to sit at 
home night after night with some female relative in a 
sore temper because not included in the invitation which 
had carried her sisters out. He was glad of any change. 
And if he started back from some of the scenes to which 
Dick and Harry led him, he was soon convinced by Dick’s 
specious sophistry, that after all, they were no more sin- 
ful than Ellen’s persistent selfishness or Martha’s mali- 


192 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


cious scandal. An unliappy, lonely yonng heart is not 
quick to see that because one evil is not worse than an- 
other evil it does not become a good. And so he was 
drawn into a course of life which for a time made the 
hymns learned in sight of the Surrey hills, and the win- 
ter Sunday-aftemoon Bible-readings fade as faint and 
distant as the stars when the sky reddens with some 
fierce conflagration. 

He did not at once go quite the lengths of the other 
two. And just when Harry came of age, there was a time 
of difficulty and exposure and disgrace. Fierce words 
ran high between the old man and his son and his ward. 
The whole family were ready to lay all the blame on 
Harry — on Harry, too haughty and hot-spirited to return 
that his younger years and unfortunate position rendered 
him far more likely to be the misled than the misleader. 
Dick was ready enough to acknowledge this privately to 
either of his cousins, — Dick would not actively have 
excused himself at Harry’s expense. But Dick was an 
inbred cowardly sinner. His own idle ideal of comfort 
was worth more to him than anything else, in this world 
or elsewhere. And he tacitly accepted his family’s de- 
fence of him, when he found that it was the gloss they 
intended to put upon their condonation of his, the woH’s 
share of blame, while they sent out the scapegoat into 
the wildemess, to perish or not, just as might happen. 

Harry was paid his diminished patrimony, out of 
which slender remains there would indeed be but httle 
left after he had satisfied the money-lenders into whose 
hands he had fallen. And he was told to leave his 
uncle’s house — a command he was by no means disin- 
chned to obey. 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


193 


The solemn triamph with which Harry’s downfall was 
eagerly promoted, coupled with the coddling sympathy 
and succour extended to the slyly-grinning Dick, stirred 
all the fire in Walter’s nature. Walter knew that Harry 
had sinned deeply enough, but not as deeply as Dick. 
His sense of justice was outraged. And so closely do 
the good and evil dwell together in our natures, that he 
no sooner saw the greater sinner escape scot free, than 
he became ready to deny any culpability in the minor 
offender. If Harry was turned out, he would not 
stay. Where Harry went, he would go too. And so he did. 

They both came to London. Until his majority, 
Walter, of course, had an allowance from his uncle, and 
aided by his dead father’s good name in the commercial 
world, he soon got an easy and rather lucrative post in a 
house of business, where, w^hen he came into his own 
money, he might hope for somethmg more permanent 
and independent. Harry, who had hitherto found em- 
ployment under his uncle, now called himself “ on the 
look-out.” Very Hkely he thought himself sincere. Walter 
never doubted it. But races and cricket-matches, and 
dog-fancying, and opera-nights, are not happy elements 
in a young man’s success in Hfe. The brothers had to 
leave one or two lodgings because Harry’s hours and 
habits did not suit quiet-going people. Walter felt his 
brother had been somewhat unfairly used, and in the 
warmth of his devotion followed him blindly. Harry got 
to the last of his fortune, and carried on his expensive 
habits on credit, until Walter was induced to draw upon 
his own expectations to save his brother from jail. When 
such a thing is done once, it has generally to be done 
over and over again, until at last, instead of the eternal 


194 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


gratitude which Harry had vowed when he received the 
first instalment, he would have deemed a denial to be an 
absolute injury. This went on, till Walter himself 
attained his majority, and in a cold formal interview 
with his imcle, received his legacy, signed a full release, 
and that came evening dolefully paid away every pound 
to the expectant money-lenders. 

Of course their absolute impecuniosity did not stop 
Harry from still running into debt, which now natui’ally 
ended in his running away. The two brothers had kept 
on affectionate terms till the last, despite such occasional 
fierce collisions as their reckless, dissipated life rendered 
almost certain. I could tell that it was still a sharp pang 
to Walter that this brother of his had left him without 
any other announcement than his disappearance. He 
did not think Harry could have meant to stay away, he 
said, though certainly Harry had often been very unlike 
himseK for some time before he went. 

At the time of this sudden separation, they were living 
in a showy lodging-house near the VauxhaU Bridge Road. 
The landlady had been a comic actress at one of the 
lower theatres, and was quite ready to make a coarsely 
pitying allowance for the miseries of her lodgers, and was 
even not impatient for her money so long as she might 
expect it at last. Not a bad-natured woman that woman 
must have been, only her poor womanly virtues had been 
thrown into the gutter, and so befouled and betrodden 
that it was not altogether easy to know tliem from vices. 
For immediately after Harry went away, Walter fell ill, 
and lay for some weeks less than half-conscious, with no 
attendants but his sluttish landlady and her smart niece, 
— a barmaid out of place. 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


195 


Tliey must have done their best by him, or he could 
not have struggled through. I daresay they looked in 
his desk, and reassured themselves by the names and 
addresses of his respectable connections ; but then, poor 
things, they had not your nice, well-bred sense of honour, 
dear young lady reader, and they were risking a great 
deal for the likes of them, and were facing the baker’s 
duns, and the butcher’s insolence, to wrest a little more 
food to supply the haK-dying prodigal within their gates. 
I never heard the landlady’s name. But the barmaid 
was called Emma. I daresay she used to read the penny 
weekly journals, and felt herself like the heroine of their 
eighty-chaptered stories. I can fancy the days of Wal- 
ter’s convalescence. The gaudy, lonely room. The weaken- 
ed nerves, the softened heart, the aching sense of separa- 
tion from the happy days of hymn-leaming in the orchard 
looking out on the Surrey hills. And the girl — a fair girl — 
gliding in and out, neater and prettier than in what she 
considered her palmier days, because she had not time to 
titivate her golden locks, nor money to spare for pink 
ribbons and pinchbeck jewelry. I can realize his want 
of somebody to confide in, the yearning of some soul to 
touch his, however blindly. And the girl would be kind 
and gentle — even a little touched, by a vague conscious- 
ness that she was becoming something very different to 
hiTTi than to the “ gentlemen” who raved about her pretty 
eyes, and talked nonsense to her over their claret and 
bitter beer. And gi'adually, in his groping after sympa- 
thy, Walter would stumble into a theory that it was 
•wiser to take the nearest, when one might despair of 
the best, forgetting that lofty aspiration is better than 
low attainment. And soft words would be whispered. 


196 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


and a promise given and taken, and then (despite the 
back account of rent, and the pawn-tickets that she knew 
all about, in what poor Walter thought his secret drawer) 
the sluttish landlady would talk grandiloquently to her 
neighbours, and make tempting hints about some mys- 
terious preferment coming to her Emmy.” 

They did not marry at once — not for some months 
after. Not before Walter had got quite well, and had 
taken another very inferior situation in a counting-house, 
where, nevertheless he again mixed with respectable men, 
and caught glimpses of well-bred, and ladylike women, 
their female connections. Not before he had seen Emmy 
in her glory, with curls haK a yard long, and a blue 
dress with a scarlet sash. Not before they had gone 
through many a tiffing and crying, because he reproved 
her for the way she spoke, and was not exactly prepared 
to walk out with her on Sunday afternoon, curls, di’ess, 
sash, and all. Not, in fact, until, in the same gaudy 
sitting-room where the interesting convalescent had once 
spoken such sweet words, there was a very ugly scene 
between the landlady, Emmy, and himself, wherein the 
landlady called him some very plain names, all the more 
unpleasant because they apphed, and used some very 
pointed threats, which were not as weighty as they 
might have been, since he had not a penny to be mulcted 
in, nor any social circle to be disgraced before — while 
Emmy stood aside, and whimpered, and put him in mind 
of some things that had happened while he was ill. 
Emmy’s tears, and her poor ungrammatical remembran- 
ces, carried their point to a spot in his soul which the 
abuse and threats could not reach. And next day he 
put up the banns, and in three weeks they were married. 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


197 


One of those melancholy weddings when the clergyman 
looks sorrowful, and the pew-opener tosses up her head, 
and gives “ the hussy ” to understand that she knows all 
about her ! 

His earnings were miserably inadequate for the new 
claims upon them. One day he happened to come across 
an old business associate of his father’s. The gentleman 
knew that the young Sedleys had not turned out well, 
and that this one had made an imprudent marriage. But 
he was sorry to see his old friend’s son looking so miserable, 
and in the course of a few weeks he wrote to him offering 
him a place in the counting-house of a factory not far from 
Walter’s birthplace. It was trying to think of going 
back to the old innocent scenes, but the salary was a lit- 
tle higher, and expenses would be less, and it struck 
Walter that his wife might improve if taken away from 
her old coarse associations and her vixen-tongued aunt. 
So thither the two migrated, and there they had hved 
together till the morning before I saw him standhig 
forlorn in Benbow Place. 

“ I don’t know how it was ; I seemed to turn wild,” he 
said, drearily. “ Emma is never pleased. She has been 
used to so much strong excitement. Poor girl ! she may 
'well reproach me. We have been just a curse to each 
other. She is angry with me because she gets less dress 
and going about, where she hoped for more, and then I 
have turned upon her, and said I could more easily re- 
trieve everything else than my marriage with her. I’ve 
come to be unmanly enough to say that to a woman — 
my wife ! She was nagghig me yesterday morning, and 
I rushed out of the house, and took the train here. I 
thought I’d reheve her of my presence, and work my way 


198 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


abroad somewbere. If I could get any money I could 
send it to her.” 

“ That is not all the duty of a husband and a father,” 
I said, but as gently as ever I could. 

“ No, that it isn’t,” he responded heartily, “ and last 
night as I was roaming about the streets, I came to a 
comer where a man was preaching. I stood still, because 
I’d nothing better to do, and because the very crowd 
seemed companionable. I heard what he had to say, 
but I did not attend— did not care a straw for anything 
till they began to sing a hymn — an old hymn, sir, I dare- 
say you know it — 

‘ Soldiers of Christ, arise, 

And put your armour on.’ 

It brought back the very look of the autumn afternoon 
when Harry and I had repeated it to mother. And after 
that there was a new meaning in all the preacher said. 
I always knew I’d been doing wrong, but my whole na- 
ture had been hke a dark room, where one can’t see 
half the disorder, and now it was like a light suddenly 
carried in ! I don’t know how I got through last night. 
I hired a room at a coffee-house. I went to bed, but I 
never closed my eyes. And I got up early, and went out 
and stood on London Bridge. Sir, I’ll own it was only 
fear that kept me from jumping over, for I did not want 
anything then to prove to me there was Somewhere 
beyond the water ! I don’t know how long even that fear 
would have kept my brain from whirling round. I won- 
der what would have become of me if you hadn’t spoken 
to me.” 

“The God that you had forgotten so long did not for- 
get you,” I said. 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


199 


“No, ‘while we are yet sinners’ — the preacher said 
that,” he murmured softly. “ I’ve thought about relig- 
ion sometimes. I’ve thought I’d try to mend my ways, 
and make myself good enough for it some day. I took 
the matter at the wrong end. No wonder I always let 
it drop ! 

‘ Strong in the strength which God supplies 
Through His eternal Son.’ 

That’s it. But it’s wonderful how those seem mere 
words, a sort of form of speech, till that light comes in — 
just as a child might think a nut a tolerable plaything, 
and would never find any other meaning in it, till some- 
body cracks the shell, and gives liim the kernel. If I’d 
only understood them before ! ” 

“ Now is the accepted time — ^now is the day of salva- 
tion,” I urged. 

There was a cahn, softened look stealing over his face, 
giving it a beauty that was not its own. 

“ I’m afraid to say I do accept Christ’s mercy ! ” he 
sighed. 

“No need to say it. He knows what you feel,” I 
said. 

“ Then I think He knows I want to accept it ! ” he 
exclaimed, with sudden energy. “ But oh, my poor ruin- 
ed life ! — ^it is all too late to save it !” 

“ Not so,” I said (I had some faithless doubts in my 
heart, but thank, God, He gave me strength not to utter 
them). “ Not so. You cannot undo the past. But the 
future is yours. Your folhes and sins have set you some 
hard duties, but surely not too hard for you to do for His 
sake who gave Himself to save you from their bitterest 
penalties.” 


200 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


“ I can see it is no nse for me to hope to become a 
Christian while I stay away from Emma and the baby,” 
he said, very practically ; ‘‘ a man might as well think to 
become honest while he is stealing a loaf. But it will be 
dreadfully hard to be one when I’m there ! ” 

“You may expect God to help you when you’re in 
your duty, my boy,” I observed. 

“But even that seems strange, when my duties come 
from my sins,” he said, pondering. 

“ No,” I answered. “ If you are a Christian, God wiU 
surely help you to do your duties to save you from more 
falls and sin. But He does not promise to give you 
happiness in such duties. Yet remember, He is such a 
loving God that He often gives more than he promises. 
Never less.” 

“Will you go home with me to-morro w ? ” he asked 
so pitifully. “ It will perhaps keep Emma from saying 
something that might bring the fiend up in me again just 
at the first. But yet I oughtn’t to trouble you, sir.” 

“ I should be a very poor Christian if I was’nt willing 
to help a struggling brother if I can,” I rephed. “ I can 
understand that you want somebody to be your guard 
against yourself. Kemember, you always have such a 
friend above. But He often helps us by an arm of fl<^h. 
I will go with you.” 

And then we two, the middle-aged man who had baen 
led by such gentle paths, and the young one, so weary 
with such hard ones, kneeled down, and prayed together 
before we parted for the night. The dry repressed str^ig- 
gle was over. There were tears now. 

He slept in my spare bedroom. And next day as 
soon as I could despatch my necessary business, we 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


201 


started off for Croydon. But it was twilight before we 
reached there, and by the time we turned down the row 
of inferior houses where they hved, there were lights in 
almost every window. There was one at theirs. Walter 
pointed it out to me, with almost a sob, and added, “ I’m 
sure Emmy was very different once.” The curtain was 
not drawn, and we could see into the room as we passed. 
There was the cot, with the poor, but half-welcome baby 
in it. There was the tea-table spread disorderly enough, 
but with toast and jam and such other considerations 
for creature comfort, as showed the disorder did not 
arise from any emotional disturbance in the presiding 
genius. And she herself sat in the arm-chair calmly 
remodelling a dress, and turning her head on every side 
to catch the effect of a trimming. I could understand 
the detonation that had grown over her. It sat rather 
loose, like a mask. 

I saw W alter’s face. I knew what it meant — a wild 
cry of anguish — a yeamiug — “if she only seemed to 
care !” 

“ For Christ’s sake !” I whispered. 

He stepped forward, and pushed open the door. It 
led straight into the parlour. She was startled, and 
cried out, as some women cry when they see a black 
beetle. But she recovered her seK-possession in a mo- 
ment, for even such accidental excitement was not in the 
role it pleased her to play. 

“ La, Mr. Sedley,” she said in a hard, pert voice, “ I 
thought you was gone for good and aU, so I just went 
round to the BeU and Crown in the High Street, and 
hired myself as an extra hand for their bar this busy 
time, and I was putting my things tidy to go in. You’ve 
9 * 


202 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


not had your tea, I suppose ? I beg your pardon, sir ” 
(this to me, whom she now observed in the rear), “ I 
suppose you’re with IVIr. Sedley. Sit down, Sir — least- 
ways I don’t think there’s a chair clear,” and she whip- 
ped some clothes from one and set it for me, and threw 
the garments into the comer. 

To satisfy Walter, I stayed and took some tea, but 
I did not stay much longer. I felt one too many. I 
could see that Mrs. Sedley resented my presence. And 
I could also see that however Walter might fear himself, 
he had no cause to fear. He was too thoroughly 
humbled and contrite just now to be aggravated by any- 
thing his wife might say. He saw me back to the rail- 
way station. “ Many thanks to you for coming, sir,” he 
said as we shook hands ; “ if I find it’s hard work, I 
must remember the hardness is my own making, and 
any strength I may have is aU God’s free gift.” 

“ And His strength is made perfect in weakness,” I re- 
joined ; yet, God forgive me, I could not help thinking 
the lot before him was over-hard. I scarcely dared to 
hope that he might hold on. I was so fEuthless that I 
forgot that “with men it is impossible, but not with 
God ; for with God all things are possible.” 

Time passed on. I had occasional letters from Walter 
Sedley, and whenever business brought him to London, he 
always called in to see me. I was quite satisfied that he 
had not turned back to the husks and the swine, and 
was enduring the purgatory of his home-life as best he 
might. I always made the ordinary inquiries after Mrs. 
Sedley, but I felt that notwithstanding the confidence so 
singularly reposed in me, I was not entitled to do more. 
Once or twice when I had sent some slight present for 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


203 


the baby, he conveyed a message from “ Emma,’’ which 
I felt sure had gained in civility and kindliness by his 
translation of it. The baby was a safer subject. I, poor 
old bachelor, had at first to feign a lively delight in the 
accounts of her little tricks and sensibleness, and by-and- 
by to feel some sincere interest in the reports of those 
strange questions and remarks, which give us some faint 
echo of God’s whisper to the child-soul. There was a 
second baby in due time — a boy, but the mother had a 
severe filness, in the course of which the poor infant died. 
“ Emma ’’ herself had a narrow escape, and there was a 
long and particularly sickly convalescence, in the course 
of which I was earnestly entreated to do them the honour 
of a visit, which pressing invitation I could not refuse. 

I found Walter looking very thin and worn, almost as 
ill as his wife, in her coarse black dress, with the poor 
remains of her golden hair smoothed back under an 
invahd’s cap. He must have had a hard time of it, for 
they could not hire much assistance. Emma was still 
too feeble to move about the simplest household duty, 
but I could not help noticing how her subdued blue eyes 
followed her husband as he set the tea things and cut the 
bread and butter. She loved him again now, as she had 
loved him in the gaudy httle sitting-room near Vauxhall 
Bridge — ^nay, better, for now I thought there was depre- 
cation instead of vanity in her affection. The softer feeling 
might pass away again, hke the morning dew in the hot 
sun, but it was something to have been there once and 
to have returned, even for a time. It might return 
oftener and oftener. It might grow into a habit of loving, 
which should draw away nourishment from the older 
habit of vulgar, selfish display and excitement. 


204 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


In the course of the evening, Walter had to leave us 
for a while to discharge some business duty. We 
sat opposite to each other beside the fire. The httle 
daughter was in her cradle by her mother’s side. There 
was a silence. Emma, as the ex-bar maid, would have 
talked glibly about something — anything. Emma, this 
poor, sick women, patiently held her peace. 

“ What a comfort it must be to IVIr. Sedley that you 
are recovering fakly now !” I said, at last. 

Her white lip trembled, and she did not make a direct 
answer, but remarked, “I’m afraid he is nearly worn 
out.” 

“ He will not mind that,” I rejoined. 

She suddenly burst into tears. 

“ It’s a pity for him I didn’t die !” she sobbed. “ Often 
and often, when he’s thought I was asleep, I’ve lain and 
hstened to him doing about the house, and I’ve prayed 
to God to take me, and leave him free again to do justice 
to himself. But I hadn’t prayed for so long, that I sup- 
pose God wouldn’t hear me !” 

“God hears all our prayers,” I said; “but he sends 
us the answer which He knows we want — ^not the one 
which we fancy will suit us. Just as you might go to a 
physician and ask for such and such a remedy ; but if 
he knew it would be deadly for your disease, he would 
refuse it, and give you something else. Remember, God 
has to hear contrary prayers. Depend on it, Walter 
was praying for your recoveiy all the while.” 

“That’s just it,” she cried, passionately. “He used 
to be unkind sometimes, and tell me that he’d done the 
worst thing for himself when he married me, and then I 
didn’t care a bit, and answered back that he’d done it, 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


205 


and couldn’t get out of it, tliough I’d be precious glad 
myself if he could. But since he hasn’t said a Tt^ord, and 
has left off mocking my talk, and scoffing at my dress. 
I’ve come to see it all. I see what I’ve given him to 
bear, and I can’t bear myself ! I only wish I could have 
died — I do !” 

“ My dear girl,” I said, ‘‘ in times past, you and ]\Ir. 
Sedley have both made great mistakes, and sinned 
against each other grievously. Neither of you can help 
that now. God Himself cannot undo what is done. But 
though you cannot make a torn garment whole, you can 
mend it. And you may become very tenderly fond of 
what has cost you so much trouble, though it may be but 
a poor, maimed, imperfect thing after all. Walter and 
you must hve to grow patient with each other. And 
believe me, my dear girl, he is more than patient with 
you already. St. Paul tells us that patience brings ex- 
perience, and experience hope.” 

‘‘I don’t know much about the Bible,” she sighed, 
pitifully. “ I went to Sunday school once, but I didn’t 
attend much, and I couldn’t make out the collects we 
had to learn.” 

“I’m sure Walter would be delighted to read with 
you,” I said. “It is early days with him yet, though 
the latest scholar is often not the lowest in God’s school. 
You will help your husband if you will let him help you, 
dear Mrs. Sedley.” 

Here Walter’s return interrupted our conversation, 
and it was time for me to go home. As he and I tramp- 
ed through the dark lanes together, I must confess I 
betrayed a httle of Emma’s confidence, just enough to 
help him quickly to understand any timid overture that 


2o6 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


she might make, which a slight hesitation might drive 
back, not easily to advance again. 

My next news of them was stai-thng. They were all 
going abroad — to Anstraha. Emma was not very strong 
yet, but the doctor had admitted that the long sea 
voyage would set her up rather than harm her. They were 
going rather suddenly, with the brother of Walter’s 
present employer, who was sure he could easily place 
Walter in his settlement. They would come into London, 
bag and baggage, only the evening before their final de- 
partmre. Might they hope to see me at the Docks in the 
early morning ? Or if not, would I excuse their calling 
at my chambers at such an unreasonable hour as nine 
o’clock in the evening ? 

I gave them an invitation to supper — and I resolved to 
go to the Docks as well. And so they spent their last 
evening in their native country with me, Not a sorrow- 
ful evening, though as solemn as most last times are. 
It was wonderful to see the fight buoyant manliness of 
Walter’s face and figure. And it was touching to observe 
how poor Emma did not seem to fear him, and yet made 
earnest little efforts to keep her grammar straight ! They 
were going to begin again. The fresh wide ocean would 
roll between them and the sordid, blighted past. And 
as I waved them my last farewell, in that mystic morn- 
ing fight that transforms our practical London into a 
fairy city, and thought of the crimes and follies that 
spring so rankly and irrepressibly in our hot, crowded 
over-civilisation, I almost felt the healing breezes from 
the green savannahs far away, and once more thanked 
God for that precious assurance which we are so prone 
to forget, that “He is faithful, and voll not suffer you to 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


207 


be tempted above that ye are able : bufc will with the 
temptation also make a way of escape, that ye may be 
able to bear it.” 

I beard from Walter regularly. There was always 
affectionate mention made of Emma, but gradually I 
noticed she was less often named, and instead the 
pronoun ‘‘ I ” was changed for the plural “ we.” In 
process of time, the births of two sons were chronicled, 
one named after his father, and the other christened 

Edward Garrett.” They were prosperous people, and 
I caught glimpses of life of that free, primitive kind, 
which suited the noble, generous impulses of Walter’s 
nature, and gave his wife opportunity to grow to his 
level without submitting to degrading humiliation in the 
meantime. Once and again Walter mentioned the miss- 
ing Harry. He had caused inquiries to be set on foot 
about this lost brother, but with no result. I proffered 
such services as were in my power, as a resident in that 
great centre where the fugitive was most likely to turn 
up sooner or later. And more than once, the officials we 
employed trotted me off to see dead or dying outcasts 
who might be the person I was interested in. For a 
long time, aU was in vain. But at last I was taken to a 
workhouse to see a man who had fallen down ill in the 
casual ward a few days before. He had used that casual 
ward several times, and had given different names, and 
the clue was, that one of these aliases was Sedley. 

He w^as a wretched object — a hving mass of diseases 
and abomination. As thorough a suicide as if he had 
cut his own throat,” said the plain-speaking parish doctor. 
But is was very near the end now. His ear was almost 
dull in death. “He’s almost forgotten how to speak 


208 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


truth, it’s grown more natural to tell lies, even without 
an object,” whispered my companion, the doctor ; “we 
must come upon him sharply. — Henry Sedley, were you 
not bom at Croydon ?” 

“ Who said I was Henry Sedley ?” muttered the dying 
man. “I entered my name last time as Griffin Death.” 
He had really done so, in fiendish and ghastly jest. 

“ We know you are Henry Sedley,” pursued the un- 
ruffled practitioner. “Now, you might as well own it at 
once. It can’t matter to you now, and it seems it ’ll be 
some satisfaction to a brother of yours. It’s truest kind- 
ness to speak sharp to such,” he added aside ; “it makes 
up their minds for ’em, and settles ’em at once.” 

“ Walter! ” exclaimed the sick man, and there was a 
touch of genuine emotion in his tone as he breathed the 
name, but it died into the old reckless defiance as he 
went on — “ What 1 Walter’s living yet, is he ? Afraid I 
shan’t be much credit to him. Sorry I’ve got no will to 
put him in, poor old boy 1 ” 

“ Haven’t you any message to send to your brother ?” 
I said, speaking at last. “ He won’t care for anything 
else, if he may only have some hope for you.” 

“ Hope — for me 1,” he echoed. “ What’s the good of 
talking rubbish ? I wish you’d hold your tongues, and 
go and get me allowed a drop of gin or brandy, or some- 
thing of that sort. Hope — for me ! Why, I’ve never had 
a single chance ! ” 

He did not sjJfeak again, and died that night. 

O it was sad, sad to send such a story over the sea. 
But it had to be done. Walter wrote back and thanked 
me for the trouble I had taken. That was all. He made 
no fuj’ther allusion to poor Harry. 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


209 


The last winter that I was in London I heard a tall, 
robust, squire-hke man, asking for me in the warehouse. 
The boy brought in his name as Mr. Sedley. It was 
actually Walter ! He had brought over his whole family 
to take a look at mother-country. They had put up at 
an old-fashioned city hotel not far off, and there Walter 
led me that very evening. There was Mrs. Sedley, with 
the golden hair nearly grey, and a matronly, hospitable 
manner, and a pleasant smile, though I noticed there 
came a grave look upon her face whenever she was not 
speaking. And there was the young Emma, a slender, 
pretty girl, and there was the rather precocious young 
heir, and there was my chubby name-sake ! And didn’t 
we have a sociable evening ! “ Eather,” in the phraseo- 
logy of Walter Sedley, Jun., aged twelve. 

I saw a good deal of them during their month’s stay 
in the old land. I took the young ones about and 
showed them the sights. And they told me lots of 
news. How fond they were of their father — ^how fond 
everybody was of him. How he liked to go down to the 
ships and look after the emigrants that came in. How 
many people there were in Sydney, and in Melbourne, 
and about the country, who said they owed everything to 
him. How there was no church near the farm. But 
there was service every Sunday in their great kitchen. 
“Papa prays, and reads, and speaks a little himself,” 
said Emma, “unless there’s somebody staying wdth us, 
or with some of the neighbours, that he says can do it 
better. But I don’t think anybody does it better, sir. 
We’ve seen some of the convicts crying while papa has 
been praying, haven’t we, Watty? We have some con- 
^dcts about our place. There is one, Brown Jack they 


210 


WHITE AS SNOW. 


call him, nobody could ever manage him till papa. And 
novr he’ll mind papa’s very look. I think Brown Jack 
would die for papa. You know, sir, papa is so kind — 
and he always seems so sure that God wOl help every- 
body to be good, if they’U only try. Brown Jack used 
to say he couldn’t even try. But papa always said he 
could, and he had long talks with Jack, and Jack is quite 
different now. I say papa must be one of the best men 
in the world, such as he says you are, sir.” 

“Well, my dear,” I said, “it is something in our 
favour when anybody loves us well enough to say so.” 

Walter Sedley and his wife were certainly happy at 
last. But let nobody think that their folhes and sius 
had left no sorrowful trace behind. They had sowed 
bitterness, and they must reap some of it, although they 
had sowed other seeds siuce, which had brought forth 
abundant harvest. Apart, they each mourned to me that 
a day must come when their children would ask ques- 
tions and learn truths which would, at the very least, 
mingle pity in their reverent love for both their parents. 
Nay, if the loss could have been all their own, they would 
have borne it gladly. But they were ready to cry, “ Lo, 
we have sinned, and we have done wickedly ; but these 
what have they done ? ” For would there be no feeling 
of humiliation for these innocents ? The bitterest pang 
for a saved sinner is, that some of the temporal penalty 
of his misdoings must fall on others beside himself. And 
yet, as they thought of their two hves, ransomed in a 
double sense — the wrecks that seemed only fit to spread 
moral pestilence about them, purified and raised to do 
good work in God’s world, they bravely took up the cross 
that must remain to the end^ and thankfully acknowl- 


WALTER SEDLEY. 


2II 


edged, Thou, our God, hast punished us less than our 
iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance as 
this.” 

And as I once more waved farewell to them — our last 
farewell on earth — there came into my mind sundry 
sweet passages of Holy Writ : — 

‘‘Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive : and 
plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee.’^ 

“ Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the 
pit of corruption ; for Thou hast cast all my sins behind 
Thy back.” 

And as I met the crowds of sad, stained faces pouring 
through the city streets, my heart yearned towards them 
in some dim semblance of His great love who pleads — 

“ Come, now, and let us reason together : though your 
sins be as scarlet, they shall be as White as Snow.” 


THE END. 









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